


Escaped [#1]

by mieczyslxw



Series: The Death Seer Saga [1]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Avengers Tower, Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Spoilers, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Coming of Age, Father Figures, Friendship, Multi, Original Character(s), POV Original Character, POV Third Person, POV Tony Stark, Parent Tony Stark, Personal Growth, Protective Clint Barton, Protective Tony Stark, Team Bonding, Team as Family, Tony Feels, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-05-01 22:10:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 29
Words: 35,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19186363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mieczyslxw/pseuds/mieczyslxw
Summary: Fourteen-year-old Andi Katsifaras has known nothing outside of H.Y.D.R.A labs. There was perhaps a brief time where she could remember living with her father but even those memories are tainted with violence and rejection. For years, Andi has suffered, being twisted and tortured into becoming something more than what she was naturally born as, but she's finally taking a stand and getting out.Amid all the chaos, the Avengers, working to destroy whatever is left of H.Y.D.R.A, stumble upon this girl, someone they could see as a potential recruit. Some members of the team are divided about her position on it, once she's taken under their wing for protection, but they'll all soon learn that their hand will be forced in the decision making process, because something bigger and stronger is threatening the fate of the world, and they need all the help they can get.Andi will soon find herself needing to decide whether she would rather live a life away from all she has been plagued with since birth, or whether she would rather use everything she was given to try and make the world a better place.





	1. prologue

Andi's skin stung. She had resisted the urge to touch her forearm for the past few hours, to prevent her new scar from becoming worse. Surely eight-year-olds were too young to be marked permanently with black ink? 

Yet, Andi still sported a brand that would be on her skin forever. 

 

** _07_ **

 

She was not sure whether it was comforting to know that she wasn't the first one, or the only one. She was seventh. But among how many more? What was this even for? When Andi had been taken away by her mother from her home the previous day, she had left with the feeling that she would finally be safe. She would finally be away from her father. Her mother was finally doing something to help her.  

But since then, all she had done was lock her inside a white room with just a bed, which was right after she'd gotten her tattoo. There were no windows in this room, and the door couldn't be opened. She was trapped. Trapped with her thoughts. Trapped with the  _voices_.  

Andi could hear them now too. There were many of them. Some asked for help. Others told her how they died in that very room. On  _her_  bed. Because of this, Andi was huddled in a corner, far away from the bed, with her head between her knees. She didn't want to open her eyes. She was too afraid of what she would see. Despite seeing the spirits for three years now, the sight of their scarred, disfigured bodies was not something she could ever get used to. 

 

_I got a tattoo like that too. I was dead a week later…_

_Sie werden dich töten... ⁽¹⁾_

_They tortured me all night..._

_Olyan sok fájdalom... ⁽²⁾_

_Get out... you need to get out…_   

 

The voices suddenly stopped when the door to her room opened. Andi's head snapped up, and she peered through the strands of brown hair that fell over her face, shrouding most of her view. If she could hide behind her thick hair forever, she would. But that wasn't an option. Not here. 

At the door stood her mother. She was dressed properly, in a combination of clothes that Andi saw almost every day -- a white shirt, neatly pressed and tucked into a black skirt that reached her knees. Behind her, on either side, stood two guards, dressed completely in black. They had large contraptions in their hands, which Andi knew, from the few movies she had seen, were not guns. They terrified her enough that she didn't even want to know what they were capable of. 

Andi's mother wore a smile on her face. She behaved as though nothing was wrong with the fact that she was dressed so perfectly, compared to her daughter who wore nothing but hospital scrubs over her skinny frame. Hospital scrubs with blood on it. And it wasn't Andi's blood. 

"How are you feeling?" her mother asked, walking further into the room. The guards remained by the door, not putting a foot past the threshold. 

Andi stared up at her mother, lifting her head a little and allowing her hair to move back, revealing more of her face, her red eyes and her tear stained cheeks. 

When she failed to answer, her mother walked closer to her and held a hand out. Unlike Andi, her mother's bronze skin was free of any imperfections. Andi was scared to touch her. For as long as she could remember, she was punished for something she couldn't control. The last thing she wanted to do was make a mistake that would lead to more pain. 

"It's okay,  _mija_ ," the woman coaxed, bending a little more till, ultimately, Andi took her hand and stood up. She was a little unsteady, which probably had to do with the fact that she hadn't slept in days, and she wasn't exactly fed well. 

"Your father did a terrible job taking care of you," her mother continued, removing her hand from Andi's grasp to place her fingers on Andi's chin. She tilted her head up and turned it to each side slowly, as if she was inspecting her. "I should never have left you with him." 

Andi felt a spark of hope. Did that mean everything would be better now? 

"Don't worry,  _mija_. You're with me now. You're with your mama. I'll take care of you," she smiled down at her. "I'll help you reach your full potential. And then... then  _you_  will help  _me_." 

Andi didn't understand what that meant, but she didn't have the chance to ask. Her mother's hand dropped from her face, and she took two steps back. As soon as she did that, the guards stepped inside, and advanced toward her. 

Surprised, Andi jumped back, unaware of what was happening. "Mama?" She called out with uncertainty. Wasn't her mother going to help her? 

The men grabbed her arms, and Andi now acted impulsively, kicking out and trying to get away. “ _Mama_!"

While the two of them restrained her, her mother stepped forward again, pulling out a capped syringe from her shirt's breast pocket. Andi only spotted a deep purple liquid in it before she felt herself being injected. 

Then, almost instantly, the men backed away, causing Andi to fall to the floor on her knees. She made no attempt to move, even as the guards backed out of the room once more. 

"What--" instead of asking her mother what just happened, her words were cut short, because Andi felt sudden pain. No, not pain. It was more like a terrible  _burning_. like fire coursed through her veins, filling up her entire body. Her scream filled the room, and her body curled in on itself on the cold, granite floor. 

"It'll be over soon,  _mija_ ," she could hear her mother saying, amid her screams. But Andi noticed nothing else after that. She didn't notice when her mother left. She didn't notice that her vision had become blurry. All Andi felt was the burning. All she heard were voices, and the distant sound of thunder. And all she could remember wishing was that she died soon, so the suffering would end. 

 

* * *

 

**NOTES**

**⁽¹⁾**  | German for "They will kill you."

**⁽²⁾** | Hungarian for "So much pain.”


	2. becoming a hero

"This is taking too long," Pietro muttered, standing near a barred window so he could peep out. There was uncertainty on his face, but most of all, Andi could recognise impatient. He wanted to get out and put his abilities to proper use. 

Andi stood close by, the sounds of battle all around her. For the time being, they were unaffected in their Sokovian Base. Baron Strucker did a good job with putting up a strong shield around them. She knew it was not to protect the people, but rather all of his work for the past few years. The work that had given Andi her powers. And she was not the only one. 

She  _was_ , however, the only one to have been raised in that compound. Pietro and Wanda came later. Pietro and Wanda came  _willingly_. 

Andi glanced away from where Pietro stood, and toward the center of the room, where Strucker was in conversation with Dr. List. Her mother was nowhere to be seen for the time being. Andi couldn't tell if that was a good or bad thing. 

"Don't worry," Wanda murmured, crossing her arms as she stood beside Andi. "We'll go. We just need the right moment." 

Pietro looked away from the window and at the two girls. "This is the perfect moment," he said in a low tone, kicking off from the wall and walking to stand in front of them. He glanced over his shoulder and when he did, Andi briefly saw Strucker and List looking at them. "They're busy trying to protect everything. If we leave now, we can get to Stark." 

Andi had listened to Pietro and Wanda talk about Stark a lot since they arrived at the labs. She heard them berate him and talk of how they wanted to destroy him for what he did to their parents. From what she understood, Stark was someone powerful. But she also got the feeling that the twins were letting their vengeful feelings get to their head. Andi felt like there was more to the story that they failed to tell her. 

She never asked, however, because for as long as she could remember she had always been alone in this. She was number seven, of ten other kids being experimented on, but they all failed. Their bodies rejected the serums and the torture and the pain. The only one left standing to endure it all was Andi, till the Maximoff twins came along. They were older, and with their newfound abilities, they were dangerous. But Andi was not fearful of them. After all she had been through, she doubted she was fearful of that much, anymore. 

The twins never gave her any reason to be afraid anyway. Andi had long ago learned that to survive, she had to play along. She had to pretend to her mother, to Strucker and Dr. List, that she was fighting  _for_  them, and not  _against_  them, and she kept up the facade even when the twins arrived. Despite wanting revenge, they were both good people. They both took a liking to her, and while she internally disagreed with what they were planning to do, they were the only friends she had in this cruel world. 

_"No surrender!”_

Andi was jerked from her thoughts momentarily by the sound of what was probably a battle cry. Multiple people left the facility with guns in their hands, and her hazel coloured gaze quickly flew to the twins, who stood straighter. This was the moment they were waiting for. 

"Stay here," Wanda warned Andi while occasionally glancing at Strucker to make sure he wasn't looking. 

"I can help you," Andi protested, standing straight as well. Andi had no problem staying behind in the facility. She wasn't scared. In any case, it looked like this place was about to become a pile of rubble.

"You'd be better help in here in case one of them get inside," Pietro told her. "The scepter remains unguarded if you leave." 

Andi didn't really care about the scepter, but once again, she kept up her facade of playing along and following the same agenda. She nodded and Pietro sped off, Wanda right behind him. 

At that moment, Strucker and List turned toward her, only for the realisation to sink in that the twins were gone and Andi was all that remained. Strucker walked to her, towering over her frame, and Andi forced herself to keep eye contact.   


"Keep Dr. List safe," he commanded in a low tone. "Don't let anyone get to him till he finishes what he's supposed to." Strucker didn't give Andi a chance to respond because right after that, he brushed past her, leaving her along with the doctor, who was already busy with the computers. 

This was her chance. She could turn around and run away and nobody would ever find her. She could hide. She could go literally anywhere she wanted to. She could put the labs and Hydra behind. 

But then Andi glanced at Dr. List and she watched as he attempted to erase whatever data was on the systems. Data on  _her_  and all that was done to her, and various other kids, just so they could try to create a powerful army. He was going to get away with it, and Andi couldn't help but think that maybe there was more info there, on other Hydra labs and other such experiments. If this was all erased, then they would never be found. 

Andi couldn't leave knowing other kids were probably going through the same thing she had gone through all her life. 

So, before Dr. List could do much damage, Andi stepped forward. "I can't let you do that." 

The man barely turned around to face her. Clearly he didn't think of her as a threat. Either that or he felt like entertaining her would be wasting time and erasing data was more important than preserving his own life. 

"You're not going to erase all that data," Andi said again, her voice a little louder, more firm. At least, that's the way it sounded in her head. 

"I don't have time for your games," he replied, still keeping his back to her. 

Andi bit down on her lower lip. She didn't like using her powers. Some of her abilities haunted her all throughout the day because there was no way to control the voices. Right now though, she saw no other choice. 

Andi held out one hand and concentrated, and just like that, the ground began to tremble a bit. Dr. List finally froze, because he knew what Andi was trying to do. He turned slowly, but as he did, she noticed he had a gun in his hands. 

"You may be enhanced but you're still human," he told her, aiming the gun toward her head. The ground didn't stop trembling though, because Andi wasn't scared. If she was going to die while trying to stop Hydra, then so be it. 

"Like I said," Andi spoke. "I'm not letting you erase all that data." She didn't wait for him to respond to her this time. She just got the ground to tremble more. Little cracks began to open up in the floor, cracks that Andi knew could get bigger and swallow List whole if she wanted them to. 

But Andi didn't get the chance to do anything else, because suddenly, there was someone else in the room with them. Andi barely turned to see a flash of red before there was a quick blast and List was thrown off to the side. 

The ground stopped trembling, mainly because Andi was distracted. Dr. List was no longer a concern for her. No, now she was focused on the man stepping out of a red and gold metal suit. His gaze landed on her, and she stood her ground. Andi recognised who this was immediately. She had seen him on TV enough times. She'd heard about him even more from the Maximoff twins. 

"Tony Stark," Andi murmured softly. The man just stood there and stared at her, like he wasn't sure what to do. "You shouldn't have come," she told him, watching as he now got into action and plugged something into the computers. She assumed he was downloading all the data. But Andi couldn't tell if that was a good thing or a bad thing. 

"And why is that?" Tony asked, not turning his back on her. Good. He was cautious. But Andi had no desire to hurt this man. That was the agenda of two other people. 

"My friends want to destroy you." 


	3. choosing a side

"Hate to break it to you, kid, but that's kind of becoming old news." 

Andi stared at Tony, who seemed unshaken by the idea that someone -- in this case,  _two_  someones -- were out to get him. She suspected it was probably something that happened often in his line of work as an Avenger. 

Despite knowing everything the Maximoff's had told her, Andi did not feel compelled to try and get in this man's way. Maybe because he too was making no attempt to try and subdue her despite where she was. Despite knowing that she had  _abilities_. 

Or maybe because she was more curious, than anything else, about what this guy and the Avengers really stood for, because Andi knew that if it was the other way around, and Hydra had found her, she would have been in chains in seconds. Either that, or dead already. 

"How old are you?" Tony broke the silence after a few moments. 

"Fourteen." 

Tony muttered something under his breath that Andi assumed was a curse, and ran a hand through his hair. "And how long have you been here?" 

Andi bit down on her lower lip. "A long time," she answered, not going into the specifics. "And I'm pretty sure there are more like me around the world. Hydra... they're never  _truly_  defeated." Even if the Avengers managed to shut down this base, she didn't doubt that there were more, working on experiments like the one she had been subject to. 

"And you... you're not like the other two out there?" Tony asked, arching an eyebrow. Andi understood that he was referring to the twins. For a moment, she wasn't sure how to answer. 

"That depends," Andi said finally. "I'm like them because I'm enhanced too. But I don't think we share the same agenda." 

"And what would your agenda be?" 

Andi barely gave her answer a moment's thought. "Freedom from these labs." 

Tony's expression shifted from curiosity to... something that Andi wasn't quite familiar with. Was it concern? Worry? Disappointment? It was hard to tell. These were not emotions that Andi encountered on a day to day basis. The only concern she ever got was from the twins. 

Before Tony could say anything else, Andi continued. "I want to see Hydra fall. I don't want them to keep doing to other kids what I've had to go through my entire life," she said softly, maintaining eye contact with Tony. 

"With this information," Tony nodded to the computers. "We can put a stop to it. That's what we do. That's why we're  _here_." 

Andi nodded. She knew that. But she needed to see that for herself before she could make any decisions. Now she was more or less choosing a side. Not between the Avengers and Hydra, but between the twins, who were the only friends she had, and the man they wanted to kill. 

And she had made her decision. 

"I know where the scepter is," Andi said finally, gesturing for her to follow as she led him to the back of the room. She didn't turn to see if he was, in fact, following. She pushed on a wall, and it opened up, revealing a secret passageway. Andi had been down there plenty of times, considering a lot of her experiments were carried out there. 

Almost as soon as they reached the bottom, the scepter was on display for them to see and Andi glanced back to see Tony looking around in confusion and curiosity. She also sensed some recognition, but she said nothing till his eyes landed on the prize. 

Tony stuck his hand out, confusing Andi for a moment, before she saw a flash of red and part of his suit attached itself to his hand. Before he could reach out and take it though, something changed. Tony froze, and Andi looked at him for a moment, preparing to ask him what was wrong, but her question was soon answered. 

Andi saw more red, but this was not a flash of Tony Stark's suit coming toward him. No, this came from Wanda Maximoff. She had used her power on Tony, rendering him lost to an illusion for the time being, and she now looked at Andi questioningly. 

"You know what this man did," Wanda said, her expression soft now that she was looking down at Andi. "He  _killed_  our parents." 

"His  _weapons_  did," Andi replied. "And that isn't right either but he's not our enemy here, Wanda. We don't have the power to stop Hydra, but they just might." And that was more important than revenge. 

But not according to the Maximoffs. 

"Hydra is already finished," Pietro announced, suddenly appearing at his sister's side. He too, looked down at Andi with a soft gaze. "Tony Stark and his gang of misfits have caused more damage." 

Andi shook her head. "You... you're both having your mind clouded by revenge. That's not going to get you anywhere." 

"Andi," Wanda took a step toward her. "If you want to leave that's fine. We won't stop you. We... We've only wanted what was best for you. But we  _can't_  let him get away when we're this close." 

And glanced toward Tony, still in a daze, and then back at Wanda and Pietro. She wanted so badly to just leave and start fresh. Live a life where nobody from her past would find her. But things were never that easy. And she could never live in good conscious, thinking about all the things she could have done to prevent disaster. 

"And I can't let you do this," Andi replied finally, letting out a small sigh. Almost as soon as she said the words, she jerked her hand to the right, and a metal robot -- one that was still in the process of being completed on a nearby table -- flew toward the twins, catching them off guard and sending them both back a bit. 

Andi wasted no time in getting more to try and get them to back away, while Tony resurfaced from his hallucination in time to see what was going on. 

"I can hold them off," Andi told him, lifting a hand and causing the ground to tremble a little. She didn't want to hurt the twins, but she would do as much as she could to keep them at bay till Tony could leave. 

He took one look at her, before grabbing the scepter. As soon as he did, the rest of his suit followed him, encompassing his body till an armoured suit made of iron stood beside her, instead of the dark haired man that had been there moments ago. 

"Go," Andi urged, intending to open up a fissure in the ground. She'd get more reinforcements from there in the form of vines and roots. 

Tony stayed still for a few more seconds, as if he was debating with himself over what to do. And then, without a word, he scooped up Andi's small frame, surprising her, before shooting upward and out of the facility. Before she knew it, they were surrounded by daylight again, and Andi tried to remember the last time she had been exposed to so much fresh air. 

Tony kept flying, and Andi didn't look to see where he was taking her. Instead, she looked down, at the facility that was now near ruins, and she thought over the choice she made, the one that forced her to leave her friends behind, while telling herself in her head that this was the right decision. 


	4. welcome to your new home

Andi couldn't stop staring outside the windshield of the jet she was now on. She hadn't seen so much sky and daylight in a year, let alone in those few minutes. Conversation was going on behind her, but she only mildly paid attention. Her ears perked up when the conversation took an interesting turn. Andi was not surprised. A stranger was now on a jet with the Avengers after having come from the facility they just raided. If she was one of them, she would have been suspicious too. 

"Do we know anything about her?" she heard a woman's voice asking. She was probably talking to Tony since he was the one that brought her there. "You say she has powers. How do we know she's not playing some sort of game here to try and get the scepter back?" 

"Because she  _led_  me to the scepter," Tony explained. "She helped me get away from those freaky twins and she was willing to take the fall for it. That, to me, doesn't seem like she's playing a game." 

"You know Hydra. You know how they mess with people. This could all be a set up," the woman continued, clearly uncertain about this whole scenario. 

"She's a child," Andi heard a more deep voice now, and she turned around briefly to see a much taller man with long, blond hair. "How much could she be capable of?" 

"I'm not a child," Andi finally interrupted, turning her body completely so she faced them. "And I'm capable of more than what you've already seen," she told them softly, crossing her arms over her chest. The woman with red hair eyed her curiously but Andi continued. "The Maximoff Twins accepted experimentation with the hopes that they'd be able to destroy you," she said, looking to Tony. "If I was on their side, I would have done that for them the moment I saw you. I didn't, because I they're need for vengeance is misplaced." She looked toward the redhead again. "I'm not here to trick you. All I want is freedom. Once we land, I won't bother you ever again." 

There was a bit of silence after that. One of the men, the one with the shield that Andi knew to be Captain America, was working on hooking up one of their other members to an IV. He looked like he was hit pretty bad. Andi then let her gaze drift toward another man in the corner, seated with headphones over his ears. He had his eyes closed. 

Turning her attention back to the three that stood before her, the woman nodded, but said nothing as she left them, instead going over to the man in the corner. Tony looked at her for a moment. "I guess introductions are in order?" Andi understood that. She hadn't even introduced herself. 

"Andi," she said softly, not wanting to bring out her full name. That was how her mother always referred to her -- when she wasn't referring to her as  _subject number 7_. 

"Right, well I'm Tony," he said, placing a hand on his chest and then gesturing to the long haired guy. "This is Thor. That there is Natasha, and she's with Bruce. Over here we have Clint. And over there--" He cut off when he turned to see Steve standing by the scepter. "That's Steve Rogers," he said, his voice faltering a little before he and Thor both moved to stand beside the captain. 

Andi hesitantly moved to stand there as well, and she looked down into the box that contained the scepter and the glowing stone at the top of it. 

"We need to find out what else this has been used for," Steve said. "And I don't mean weapons. Since when is Strucker capable of human enhancement?" 

"Since a while ago," Andi replied, causing the three male gazes to turn onto her. She continued to look at the scepter as she spoke. "He wasn't the one heading it before though. There was another man. And at the time they resorted to... other means of experimentation. They only got the scepter two years ago." Andi was not overly fond of going into detail about the various things she had endured so she remained vague. "I'm pretty sure the facility you just destroyed isn't the only one in existence but... on the bright side, they don't have the scepter for the other experiments." 

"The Maximoff twins, that's how they got their powers?" Steve asked, nodding to the scepter. "With this?" 

Andi nodded. "I did too, partly," she explained, not wanting to lie about that. "They tested it on me first, to see if I'd survive it." 

That earned a little more silence till Tony broke it. "Well, we're going to find the rest of those facilities and put a stop to all of this," he said, and Andi recognised a bit of determination in his voice, which made her smile a bit. She looked up from the scepter and at him. 

"And of course," Tony looked to Thor. "Bruce and I will look over the scepter a bit once we get back, if that's cool with you?”

Though seemingly hesitant, Thor nodded. He seemed about to say something when another voice piped in. A voice that Andi did not recognise and it seemed to be coming from... the jet? 

"Sir, we're going to be landing soon." 

Tony looked up and toward the flight controls. "Thank you, Jarvis," he said and walked over to sit down in the pilot's seat.  

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry for what you had to go through," Steve spoke, and Andi glanced to him. "I don't know the whole story but I  _have_  dealt with Hydra before and nothing is ever pleasant with them." 

Andi nodded. "Thank you," she said softly. Truthfully, she was just relieved to be free of them. For the time being at least. She didn't want to get her hopes up completely. 

"Ladies and gentlemen, prepare for landing," Tony called out, and Andi walked over curiously. She stood behind his chair and looked ahead and through the windshield to see a large tower getting closer and closer. It had a huge 'A' on the side of it, and Andi didn't need to be told what that stood for. 

"Kid," Tony spoke without looking back at her. "I know you want to leave and put as much distance as you can between yourself and Hydra, but you need to rest up," he explained as she jet flew in and settled in it's spot which Andi thought of like parking a car. Only this wasn't a car. 

She was hesitant about spending time there. Not because she believed they would wrong her or treat her the way Hydra had, but because she feared that staying in there would lead the twins right to Tony and the others. Not to mention, anyone else from Hydra that was looking for her. 

"Look," Tony continued, now standing up as the jet doors opened and the others filed out. "Just stay today, have a hot meal, get some sleep that isn't on a cold cell floor and we can talk about the future tomorrow," he suggested, looking down at her. He seemed to have this slightly awkward stance which gave her the impression that he didn't talk to people her age that much. Nor did he seem used to offering such care. "Look at it this way, I can't have it in my good conscience letting a fourteen-year-old run off on the streets without supervision after just being rescued from a Hydra facility." 

Andi pursed her lips but food and a proper bed  _did_  sound incredibly tempting. And if she left after this, who knew when she would ever experience that again, or how long it would be till she got to. So, eventually, Andi nodded. 

Tony, seemingly pleased, nodded as well and then held out a hand to gesture for her to exit the jet first. "Well then, for the time being, welcome to the Avengers Tower, formerly known as Stark Tower," he gestured to himself before following her out, and it was all Andi could do not to let her jaw drop at the mere sight of the whole place. "Welcome home." 


	5. i just pay for everything

There was a woman waiting on the landing deck, so Andi’s gaze travelled to her almost immediately, instead of taking in the sight of the place completely. The dark haired woman eyed her curiously, but turned onto Tony the moment he exited the jet as well. Already, one of the Avengers had been wheeled off in an emergency, the red-haired Natasha following closely behind. Thor left with the scepter, and Steve stood close by. 

“The lab is all set up, boss,” the woman told Tony, holding some kind of electronic board in her hands. Andi glimpsed pictures of the Maximoff Twins, as well as a picture of herself. They’d reported about her. 

“Oh, I’m not the boss. He is,” Tony nodded to Steve who went to go stand by the woman. “I just pay for everything. And design everything. And make everyone look cooler.” 

“Agent Hill,” Steve greeted the woman without batting an eyelid. Apparently, this was usual behaviour for Tony. “What’s the word on Strucker?” 

“NATO’s got him.”

“And the twins?”

That made Andi listen more attentively. What became of them? Had they fled? Were they planning an attack right now? 

“The twins were orphaned at ten, when a shell collapsed their apartment building. They’ve been active in protests since then. Apparently, they volunteered for the experimenting.” Agent Hill explained. 

“And their abilities?” Steve prodded further, likely to know what they were dealing with. That was where Andi cut in. 

“Pietro is really fast,” she explained, not knowing if there were technical terms for it. “And Wanda… well she can do a lot of things.” Not unlike herself. “Mess with your mind, move things with her mind. She has the power of the stone in that scepter.”

Steve looked at her, as did Hill and Tony. “And you do too?” Steve clarified. 

Andi nodded slowly. 

Tony decided to step in. “Hill, I think you can fill Steve in on the rest. I’ll go show our little guest where she’ll be bunking for the night and then make my way to the labs,” he gestured for Andi to follow, and she did so without hesitating. He seemed in a hurry to get out of there but Andi got the feeling that was more to shield her from further interrogation than anything. 

With no other distractions, as she followed behind Tony, she got a better look at the facility, which was definitely the most high tech building she had ever been in. Then again, she had never seen much more than the facility she was kept in for her entire life, and even there she was mostly confined to a cell. This was all incredibly new for her. And it was admittedly quite amazing.

“You have any idea what you want to do, now that you’re out?” Tony asked Andi, as they entered an elevator and began to descend a few floors. Andi made sure to keep track of which floor they had come from and which one they were going to because she didn’t want to get lost, in case she chose to do some wandering later. 

“I mean I know you wanted freedom, all that, but that has to start somewhere. Where are you going to go? You have some family out there somewhere that we can maybe help you track down?” Tony continued, exiting the lift once it opened. 

The moment it opened though, Andi saw no hallway. It opened right into a huge room. The wall length windows let out more than enough light into the room, and it was done up in shades of grey and blue, with a dark, wooden floor. On one end of the room was a bed that was almost was wide as the wall behind it. On the other end was a door that presumably led to the bathroom, and a rather modern looking vanity with plenty of drawers for the clothes that Andi did not have. 

Tony stood in the center and looked at Andi and she realised she hadn’t answered his questions. “I have a father, I think,” she explained, moving further into the room to run her hand along the wood of the vanity. It all looked so… expensive. “The last time I saw him was before I was put into the facility. I was eight. But he’s not someone I want to go back and live with.” No, the memories with him were perhaps just as traumatising as being with Hydra. “The truth is, Mister Stark,” Andi moved to sit on the edge of the big bed and looked up at Tony. “I don’t know where I want to go. I just knew that anywhere would be better than that place.” 

Tony nodded slowly, seeming to take in what she was saying. He had mixed expressions on his face, expressions she couldn’t read. Meanwhile, for a change, Andi realised that this was the first time she had entered a room and had not sensed any voices or seen any spirits. Or maybe she was just too exhausted to notice. That happened sometimes.

“Well,uh, I don’t… I don’t know much about kids— _people_ , your age, but I do know that I can’t let you wander around the streets of New York without support or a family,” Tony explained, fumbling a bit over his words, and leading Andi to believe that he didn’t have much experience talking to teenagers. It made her smile a little. “But what I _can_ do is let you stay here, till we can figure out a long term plan,” he suggested, crossing his arms as he looked at her. “You’d get food and water and proper sleep, and… well, to be totally honest, even if I let you go off on your own, there are going to be people who want to find you, even among the good guys, and at least if you’re here, I can do what I can to keep them from treating you like nothing more than an experiment.”

And Andi knew that if she was found by other people, that would be the case. They would only look out for the wellbeing of the country, because of the powers she possessed. She wasn’t sure, however, why Tony Stark was different. He was not at all like the twins described. He seemed to have something that they failed to tell her — _compassion_. 

“I… I would like that,” Andi nodded slowly, not quite meeting his gaze. Part of her couldn’t believe that this was even happening. That there was a person out there that trusted and wanted to help her. She had no idea where she would go, or what she would do, but here she was, being told that it didn’t matter because she had a place to stay till she figured it out. And she knew she would forever be in Tony Stark’s debt for that. 

Tony nodded and clasped his hands together. “Alright, great,” he nodded, offering her a wide smile. “We can, uh, figure the rest out later. You should probably rest and… change.” He took a look at her and walked to the dresser. He gently pushed it and it opened up to reveal a few clothes inside. “These are mine so they’ll probably be big for you but I think it’ll be comfy,” he picked out a shirt and pants and brought it over to her, bunched up in his hands before handing it over. Andi took it from him gingerly without a word.

“If you need anything just yell Jarvis,” he added, before making his way to the elevator and pressing the button. “Or, you know, you can take the elevator and come upstairs, if you want. Whatever you want.” He stopped rambling to step inside the elevator and murmured a quick ‘bye’. 

Andi rose to her feet. “Mister Stark?” 

He peeped out of the elevator to look at her. “Yeah?” 

Andi looked at him for a moment, and glanced at the clothes briefly before looking up at him with a grateful smile. “Thank you.” 

Tony offered a small smile and nodded before moving back into the elevator and letting the doors close. 

Andi stood there for a moment, still a little stunned, still digesting the whole thing. Wanda and Pietro’s face constantly flashed in her mind and all she could think of was the way she disappointed the only friends she had, and the only way to distract herself from that was to head into the bathroom to take a shower. 

There were so many buttons and nozzles that she had no idea what to press first. She ended up getting drenched immediately because she happened to be standing right underneath the rain shower when she pressed the button for it. Eventually, she stripped everything off and spend a good while in the hot water, rubbing off all the dust and grime for the day — for the weeks and years she’d spent in that cell and had never been subjected to anything more than a cold shower.

When she got out, she felt a lot more relaxed. Andi realised, however, that she would need a few things if she was going to be staying there. _Feminine_ things, including clean underwear, but that could wait till later. 

The clothes definitely were big. The black T-shirt, sporting the logo of what Andi assumed was a band called _Black Sabbath_ , hung loosely on her small frame, almost reaching her knees, while the short sleeves reached her elbows. The track pants were long, but fortunately had strings so she could keep it up and try to prevent herself from tripping over the pant legs by hoisting it up to her rib cage, as high as possible, and tying it into place there. 

Once she was dressed in fresh clothes, Andi felt even better. She went straight to the bed and collapsed against the soft pillows. She had never slept in such a comfortable bed, which was probably why sleep consumed her almost immediately. 

But, as usual, along with sleep, came nightmares. 


	6. you're way too young

_“Have you been seeing them again, Andromeda? Have you been hearing those voices?”_

_Seven-year-old Andi stood before her father as he sat on the couch in front of the fireplace. Her eyes were cast to the floor, and she was scared to lift them as she shook her head no._

_But her father knew better. He knew she was lying because Andi had been speaking to them. He would not have summoned her otherwise, and she had impulsively lied. Now she would be punished even more than if she had said yes._

_“There is darkness in you, Andromeda,” her father said in a calm voice, moving to stand up. Andi still kept her gaze on the floor, not daring to move. “It needs to be cast out.”_

_Usually, there were many ways to do that, but her father was trying something else today. Out of the corner of her eye, Andi watched her father walk to the fireplace and pull out one of the pokers. This one was different. Not pointy, instead having the shape of a cross at the end. A cross that now glowed orange because of how hot it was._

_Knowing what was coming, Andi shut her eyes tight. Tears were forced out the sides of her eyes, and she braced herself for what was to come. At first, her shoulder felt almost numb as her father pulled aside her loose T-shirt and pressed the heated cross to her skin. But then the burning came, and with it, the smell of burning flesh, and Andi cried out in pain. She screamed till she couldn’t any more._

Andi jerked upright in bed, panting. It was dark, and the windows were covered, compared to how they had been when she went to sleep. She wasn’t sure if that meant someone had come in, or if this so called Jarvis had taken care of it. 

Andi only then realised that her shirt clung to her skin because of cold sweat, and her hair, that had been damp before she fell asleep, was now still damp in places, because of the sweat. And it was a curly mess. 

She tried to smooth it down as much as she could as she swung her legs out of bed and glanced at the digital clock on the bedside table. _10:00 PM_. She’d slept through most of the day. While she had hoped it would be undisturbed sleep, she knew better than to hope that she could ever sleep without having nightmares. And this one was a recurring one. Nothing knew. Just an old memory. 

Sighing softly, Andi got down onto the floor, and she shivered a little as her bare feet came into contact with the cold, hardwood floor. She padded over to the vanity and pulled open the drawer so she could rummage around, and fortunately, she found a hoodie that read _Stark Industries_. No wonder Tony Stark paid for everything. 

Putting it on, Andi looked around and tried something. “Jarvis?” 

It took only a moment for a voice to respond, seemingly coming from nowhere. “Yes, Miss Katsifaras?”

Andi was surprised. “You know my full name,” she pointed out, still looking around the room, as though she could find the source of the voice.

“I do,” Jarvis responded, and she could picture a man nodding as he replied to her. “I was the one to look you up, along with the Maximoff twins, to give Agent Maria Hill your details.” 

Andi recalled the woman from the landing deck, giving information to Steve. That made sense. “Are you a person?” 

“Not exactly,” Jarvis responded. “I’m a user-interface. What you might call artificial intelligence. I help Mister Stark with his business and with the protection of this tower.” 

Andi nodded slowly. “Pretty cool,” she murmured to herself. “Where is Mister Stark right now?”

“You’ll find him in the top most floor. That’s where his laboratory has been set up,” Jarvis explained. “Is there something you need?”

Andi thought for a moment and then shook her head before replying. “No. I’m just going to go explore a little.” And with that, she pressed the button for the elevator and got on. Instead of going to the topmost floor, however, she went to the floor where she had come from, when the jet landed. 

It was quiet all around, as she stepped off the elevator. Andi had shoved her hands into the pockets of the hoodie she had on, and she walked along the corridor, getting a peek at a few rooms, since they mostly had glass walls. 

She passed one room and would have walked right past, had a voice not called out to her. “Looking for something?”

Andi stopped and backtracked, peering into the room only to see one of the members of the Avengers, sitting on a glass table. She got the impression that he was meant to be laying down, because Andi remembered that Clint was the one that had been hurt. Right now though, his torso was bandaged, and he was sitting up, though with some effort, by the looks of it. 

“Just exploring,” Andi answered him softly before stepping into the room and glancing around. Nobody else seemed to be there, which told Andi that Clint was supposed to be recovering here, till morning perhaps. “Is that really a good idea?” She asked him, nodding to his injury that had just been healed. She was quite sure putting strain on an injury like that couldn’t be good for him. 

“No, probably not,” Clint admitted. “But then again, I’ve never really been a stickler for rules.” 

Andi could understand that. She wasn’t so fond of rules either, but in her case it was obey or be brutally punished, and after being subject to so much pain, she would rather not inflict it on herself even more. 

“Nat told me about you. She said you came from Strucker’s facility,” Clint explained, and it took Andi a moment to realise that he was referring to Natasha, the redhead. Something told Andi that he already knew the gist of what had happened to her while she was in the labs, if he had already spoken to Natasha about it. He continued, and further confirmed her assumptions. “The twins were given names — Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. Yours was Persephone.” 

Andi understood that he was just stating things and not really asking, so she didn’t say anything in return. She just nodded, to confirm that what he was saying was right. 

“That name was given to you because of your… abilities. Abilities that came through experimenting.” 

Again, Andi nodded.

“How old are you?”

“Fourteen.” 

Clint nodded, but a different expression masked his face. She couldn’t read it but she guessed it was either surprise, or disappointment that she had been an experiment for Hydra for so long. He looked at her long and hard before speaking again. “I guess it’s a good thing we stormed that place then,” he said, cracking a small smile. 

Andi managed a bit of a smile as well. “Yeah, I guess so.” She glanced around a bit more before looking back to Clint. “All of you stay here in the tower all the time?”

Clint shook his head. “Some of us do. Not all of us,” he pursed his lips, making her feel like he was hiding something, but it wasn’t her place to ask. “I’m sure you know you can stay for as long as you need. You’d be safe from Hydra here.” 

Andi bit down on her lower lip and nodded. “I’m not looking for protection,” she informed him. “I’ve been through a lot. I can stand on my own. What I really want is to put an end to Hydra and people like them.” 

Clint regarded her for a moment. “You want to be an Avenger.” 

Andi hadn’t thought of it that way. Nor did she think they would so readily accept her that way. But the prospect didn’t sound like a bad one. “I don’t know. All I’ve ever wanted was freedom, but that’s never going to be a possibility as long as Hydra lives. I don’t need to be a part of a team to try and take them down.” 

Clint chuckled softly. “Okay,” he nodded. “But you’re fourteen years old. And taking down an organisation that we’ve been after for years isn’t what most fourteen years olds do, on a daily basis,” he told her softly. “You could take a shot at having a normal life. Trust me, you’ll want it.” 

Andi looked at Clint. “Is that something you regret, Mister…?” Andi realised she knew only his first name, and therefore wasn’t sure how to address him. 

“Call me Clint,” he said before tilting his head to the side a bit while he thought of an answer to her question. “Yes and no. It’s complicated. But you’re young and you have your whole life ahead of you. Don’t throw that away for vengeance. And I know you don’t want to hear it, but you’re also _way_ too young to be taking part in fights like this.”

He was right, Andi didn’t want to hear it, but she knew someone was bound to say that to her sooner or later. Clint was the first to say it and she didn’t doubt that there would be others to say the same thing.

Clint hopped off the table and winced, causing Andi to step forward in case he needed help. “The Avengers could always use help. And I know you’re a lot more powerful than you let on, I saw your file. Maybe there’s a way to do both? Just think about it. You’ve gotten out of Hydra’s clutches. That shouldn’t be for nothing.” 

Andi kept his words in her mind. He was right. 

But it also got her wondering if there _was_ a way to do both.


	7. too young for the bar too

Taking up both Tony and Clint’s advice, for the time being, Andi remained at the Avengers’ Tower. Over the next three days, she had gotten new clothes, and even got to see a bit more of the city, courtesy of Clint, since he was, currently, the only other person besides Tony who didn’t see her as a potential spy. And since Tony was busy working on something with the scepter, Clint seemed happy to offer. 

Andi was slowly adjusting. It was still weird to be surrounded by so many high tech, expensive things. And not just the technology. She could get what she wanted just by alerting Jarvis, but she tried to use this feature to a minimum. In any case, she liked exploring the tower, seeing the different rooms. Most of the top few floors were dedicated to research, however, and were filled with laboratories. 

Andi did interact a bit with the other members on the team too. Not so much Bruce yet, since he was busy with Tony, but she did stumble upon Steve in one of the training rooms, and they had a brief conversation before Andi made an excuse and left. It was still hard to be social but she was getting there. 

Andi came across Natasha too, who seemed to be warming up to her. Andi was honestly glad because she was the only other female companion that she had. The only one available to talk to, at least. But something about the woman definitely unnerved Andi because while she didn’t pick up on anything during their first meeting, on the jet, she definitely picked up on it when they met a second time, while in the tower. Andi got the strong sense of death, and it surrounded Natasha. It didn’t seem like it was all very good either, but she had refrained from saying anything. Something told Andi that it was not a part of her past that she liked talking about, and considering that Andi had things like that as well, she respected that. 

Tonight was different from the past three nights, because there was a party. This made Andi even more nervous because she had no idea how to behave in such situations. She’d never been to any kind of social gathering, yet she was now going to be thrust into a room with some important people, who were probably going to have a lot of questions. 

Tony had told her that she didn’t have to attend if she didn’t want to, but honestly, as uncomfortable as she knew she was probably going to be, she was also curious. It was full of adults, sure, and everyone was going to be questioning the presence of a fourteen-year-old girl there, but at least she wouldn’t have to be answering those questions.

Having gotten new clothes, Andi had put on a simple black t shirt tucked in the front into a pair of jeans that thankfully fit her. She had nothing that was appropriate for the kind of party taking place, but in all honesty, she didn’t like the whole ‘dressing up’ thing. Not unless she actually knew who she was with, and a majority of these people were strangers.

As expected, there were eyes on her the moment she entered the area, but she tried not to meet any gazes, instead looking for people she knew. Clint was busy speaking to the doctor that had helped heal him. Tony and Thor were speaking to Agent Hill and a guy that Andi didn’t recognise. The bar was empty, and Andi didn’t mind being alone so she walked there and took a look around. 

There were plenty of bottles, of various sizes, and there were glasses on the counter. She was nowhere near the legal drinking age, but Andi had never really tasted so much as a coke in her life, so of course, she was curious. And nobody seemed to be paying attention.

Grabbing a glass, she picked up the first bottle she saw which read _Jameson_ on it. Shrugging, Andi poured a little into the crystal glass and then lifted it to her lips. It smelled downright awful, but she took a swig anyway, and nearly coughed the whole thing up. Her throat _burned_. And the feeling didn’t go away. She set the glass aside and lifted a hand to her throat while she coughed. 

“Aren’t you a little too young to be at the bar?” 

Andi turned, mid cough, to see Natasha standing behind her. She had a smirk on her face and she walked past Andi to grab another glass. 

“How do you people drink this stuff?” Andi asked, when her coughing died down. “It tastes _horrible_.” 

Natasha chuckled. “I think it’s more of an acquired taste. And you had it neat.” 

“Neat?”

“Without mixing it with anything. That helps dilute it, and then it doesn’t burn as much,” Natasha explained, grabbing a bottle with some blue liquid in it. She poured it into a glass and then added some soda, while continuing to speak. “You really shouldn’t be left unsupervised, you know,” she added, with a tone that Andi understood to be joking.

“I haven’t really been exposed to much. None of this is familiar to me. I was just curious,” Andi explained, moving around the bar to sit down on one of the stools.

Natasha added some ice to the drink she was preparing and then some leaves that Andi figured was mint, before setting it on the counter and sliding it over. “I understand being curious. But we can’t have a fourteen-year-old getting drunk on our watch,” she smiled and nodded to the blue coloured drink. “It’s a mocktail. Non-alcoholic, _and_ it won’t burn your throat in the slightest.” 

Andi smiled a little and took the drink, taking a sip. “Thank you,” she told her, about to compliment her drink making skills when she noticed someone else approaching. Bruce.

Andi glanced between him and Natasha, and a brief look that they shared, and decided that now would be a good time to make herself disappear. She thanked Natasha once more and left the two of them, now opting to stand close to a window where she looked out over the city. It was a beautiful sight. A sight she didn’t think she would ever get to see from so high up. Briefly, she wondered where the twins were, and what they were up to. 

She didn’t get to think on it too long, however, because she was soon joined by someone else. “I see you managed to get yourself a drink.” 

Andi looked to her right to see Tony standing beside her and staring out the window as well. “Natasha made it for me. After I tried whisky and nearly spit the whole thing up.” 

Tony looked to her with an eyebrow raised. “I’m going to have to keep a lock on my liquor cabinet now, aren’t I? Should have known that came with raising a teenager.” 

Andi smiled a little. “Well you _were_ the one who offered to let me stay.” 

At that, Tony smiled a little too. “I meant it,” he told her. “We can still figure something out so you can try to lead a normal life.” 

Andi nodded. “I realised tonight that I’m curious about a lot of things because I haven’t been acquainted with them that much. Trying to be a teenager… I’m curious about what that’s like too.” 

Tony smiled and looked back out at the view. “Well then I _definitely_ have to keep a lock on the liquor cabinet.” 

Andi turned around briefly when she heard voices calling for Tony. Most of the other guests had left. All the people that remained were the Avengers, along with Doctor Cho, Agent Hill, the man that Andi had yet to learn the name of, and herself. 

“Come on,” Tony gestured for Andi to follow as he made his way over to the arrangement of sofas where everyone had settled down. 


	8. a suit of armour around the world

Andi had opted to sit down on the floor since most of the space was occupied, and that landed her next to Clint. 

“I bet it’s a trick,” Clint was saying to Thor when Andi sat down.

“Oh no, it’s much more than that,” Thor replied with a laugh as he accepted a bottle of beer from Steve. 

Clint made a face. “ _Ah, whosoever be he worthy shall haveth the power_ ,” he spoke in a mocking tone. “It’s a trick!” 

Thor pointed to the hammer, and Andi realised what they were talking about. “Please, be my guest.” 

Clint looked around briefly with some uncertainty, and suddenly all eyes were on him. He looked to Thor with a raised eyebrow. “Really?” 

“Yeah,” Thor grinned, clearly amused. He didn’t think anyone could lift the hammer. Andi didn’t know the story to that but she could guess, based on what she could see and hear. 

From beside her, Clint stood up, handing her the drumsticks he held in his hand, before he walked over to the hammer that was kept on the table. 

“Clint, you’ve had a tough week, we won’t hold it against you if you can’t get it up,” Tony called out with a smirk, causing Andi to nearly choke on her drink. 

Clint went ahead and placed his hands on the handle of the hammer and pulled with all his might, but as Andi watched, she saw that the hammer didn’t even move by an inch.

“I still don’t know how you do it,” Clint said with a sigh of defeat. 

“Smell the silent judgement?” Tony asked, looking at Clint. 

Clint stood back and gestured to the hammer. “Please, Stark, by all means.” 

Andi looked from Clint to Tony, amusement in her eyes. So this was going to become some kind of competition? She wondered why it was that nobody could lift the hammer, but she guessed that it had something to do with what Clint said earlier. Only the worthy could lift the hammer. Or maybe it had some sort of spell on it. 

Tony got up from his seat and took Clint’s place at the handle of the hammer. “Never one to shrink from an honest challenge,” he said, which earned some disagreeing murmurs from the others seated there. “It’s Physics,” he continued, gripping the hammer and beginning to pull. No matter how hard he tried though, nothing worked.

Minutes later, he was trying with the glove from his Iron Man suit, and the man that was initially a stranger to Andi — whom she now learned was named Rhodey — joined Tony with an Iron Man glove of his own, and even then, they were unable to lift the hammer.

A couple more people tried — and Andi could have _sworn_ that she saw the hammer move a little when Steve tried it — but then the guys were all done. Natasha didn’t want to try it, and neither did Hill or Doctor Cho. Which left Andi. And quite frankly she didn’t think they would even look at her. 

“Maybe our youngest recruit should give it a whirl,” Clint chimed in, nodding to the hammer from beside her. 

“Oh, no, I—“ 

“Come on, give it your best shot,” Natasha added with a small smile. 

Andi was not strong, not by any means. Being experimented on had given her powers, but none of those included enhanced strength. Still, with everyone now urging her on, Andi decided, _why not?_

She got up and walked to the hammer, glancing around nervously before she placed her hands on the handle. It at first seemed way too heavy to ever move. But then she realised that the hammer was, at the end of the day, made of a metal. And apart from plants and spirits, metal was something she could control.

So, Andi let go of the handle and instead held her palm out to hover over the hammer. She concentrated, and saw it beginning to vibrate, but whether it would lift into her hands, they would not yet find out, because something interrupted their evening. A high pitched whine sounded all throughout the room, causing Andi to lift her hand to her ear instead, as if she could block out the sound. 

Everyone else seemed to hear it as well, and they all reacted differently till the sound suddenly stopped. And then there was the sound of a mechanical clinking, against the tiled floor of the room. 

Andi followed the sound to see the source, just as everyone else’s heads turned in the same direction. It seemed to be a kind of robot. Only, it was only half completed, and seemed barely able to walk. It was trailing oil across the floor — if that was oil — and it also seemed to be saying something. 

_“Worthy_ …” It said in a deep, mechanical voice, stopping in the middle of the room and turning to face them all. “No, how could you all be worthy? You’re all killers.” 

“Jarvis,” Tony called out, but there was no response. All of them were now on high alert, and Thor had reached for his hammer. 

Instead, the robot replied. “I’m sorry, I was asleep. Or I was… a dream. There was this terrible noise… And I was tangled in… strings.” 

Steve and Tony both rose from their chairs, and Andi instinctively stepped back because she had no idea what was going on. 

“I had to kill the other guy,” the robot said. “He was a good guy.”

“You killed someone?” Steve asked, staring the robot down with an intense, but confused gaze. 

“Wouldn’t have been my first call,” the robot replied. “But down in the real world, we’re faced with ugly choices.” 

Almost everyone had risen to a standing position now, taking a defensive stance. The word ‘kill’ woke everyone up. 

“Who sent you?” Thor asked.

Instead of replying, the robot played a recording. It was Tony’s voice. 

_“I see a suit of armour, around the world_.” 

And suddenly, Andi remembered that he and Bruce had been hard at work in the labs for the past three days. But… this couldn’t have been what they were working on, could it? Something had to have gone wrong. 

“Ultron,” Bruce whispered, seemingly realising who they were dealing with. 

The robot — Ultron — seemed pleased to be recognised. “In the flesh. Or, no, not yet. Not this Chrysalis. But I’m ready. I’m on mission.” 

“What mission?” Natasha asked, keeping the thing distracted. Andi vaguely heard the sound of a gun being loaded. 

“Peace in our time,” Ultron responded. And then, before anyone could do anything, the wall behind Ultron erupted as three more robots flew through. 

Andi was too stunned to move out of the way, despite one of the robots coming hurtling toward her. With Steve standing beside her, he kicked up the table to act as a shield, but the robot pushed through it and it sent both Steve and Andi sprawling back onto the floor. 

Gunshots sounded and Andi lifted her head groggily to see Thor smacking one of the robots away with his hammer. Andi wanted to help but she had no idea how. One of the robots had now smacked Tony aside, and Andi watched as he landed on a book shelf, and the thing collapsed on him. 

Andi finally got to her feet as chaos erupted around her. Steve had now managed to jump onto one of the robots, while Thor dealt with another, slamming against the wall and knocking the head off with his hammer. 

Andi’s gaze travelled to one of the other robots, that had taken the scepter. Another was busy firing at Natasha and Bruce and since the other two were being taken care of, Andi believed this was more urgent. She held her hands out in the direction of the robot that was still firing at Natasha, because no bullets seemed to be able to penetrate it, and wisps of a deep purple colour left her hand, moving toward the robot and surrounding him. Robots were made of metal, after all. 

With a simple gesture, Andi pulled her hands apart, and the purple mist surrounding the robot acted similarly, pulling the robot apart and letting it fall to the floor in pieces. Andi dropped her hand to see Natasha staring at her, and she turned around to realise that the other robots had been dealt with already. All that was left, was Ultron, and everyone was looking at him now. 

“That was dramatic,” he said, attempting to walk. “I’m sorry, I know you mean well. You just didn’t think it through. You want to protect the world but you don’t want it to change. How is humanity saved if it’s not allowed to evolve? There’s only one path to peace. The Avenger’s extinction.” 

At that, Thor had enough, because he threw his hammer and destroyed Ultron’s body into pieces. The hammer soon flew back to his hand, and they all witnessed the lights flickering in what was left of Ultron’s body. And he managed to get a few words out too.

_“I had strings, but now I’m free.”_ And only then did the lights in his body fade away completely. 


	9. tear them apart from the inside

“All our work is gone.” 

Andi sat down in the laboratory where Tony and Bruce had been hard at work for the past three days. Hard at work on Ultron, only to have it fly back up and hit them in the face. Almost literally. 

She had no place to interject here. She was nothing more than a child in their eyes, and she was sure of that, and in any case, she was the newest one there. 

“He’s been in everything. Files, surveillance. Probably knows more about us than we know about each other,” Natasha said, reading something from one of the electronic tablets. 

“What if he decides to access something a little more exciting?” Rhodey suggested. 

“Nuclear codes,” Hill answered his question, as the realisation dawned on her. 

“He said he wanted us dead,” Natasha piped up, turning to lean against the table so she could face everyone. Andi herself sat on a stool beside Tony, who was busy staring at the now broken body of Ultron, whilst deep in thought.

“He didn’t say ‘dead’,” Steve corrected. “He said ‘extinct’.” 

“He also said he killed somebody,” Clint continued. 

“Yeah, but there wasn’t anyone else in the building,” Hill pointed out. But that was when Andi realised that it was not a physical person. It was a user-interface. 

“Jarvis,” she whispered softly, looking up at Tony. He met her gaze briefly before turning to face the others. 

“Yes there was,” Tony answered hill, projecting to everyone the form that Andi assumed was Jarvis. Only, this collection of orange holograms looked… broken. Ripped apart. This had been done by Ultron.

“Jarvis could have assimilated Ultron. He didn’t do this based on a strategy this is… rage,” Bruce murmured as he took in the sight of Jarvis.

Before anyone could say much else, Thor suddenly entered, now dressed differently, cape on his back and a hammer in one hand. He walked directly to Tony, and lifted him up by the throat with one hand. 

“Well, rage seems to be going around,” Clint commented. Andi on the other hand, rose to her feet, alarmed. She was ready to step in. This may have backfired but she didn’t believe that Tony was the bad guy here. 

“Come on, use your words, buddy,” Tony croaked, trying to pry Thor’s hand from his throat. 

“I have more than enough words to describe you, Stark.” 

Andi’s hands were firmly by her sides, but she opened her palms, and she could see the hammer vibrating in Thor’s hand again. It was enough to surprise him, and get him to drop Tony, but before he could address it, Steve spoke. “Thor.” 

Thor, though reluctant, turned away from Tony and Andi, and looked to Steve. 

“What about the rest of the robots?” Steve asked. 

“Trail went cold about 100 miles out, but it’s headed North. And they have the scepter,” Thor replied.

“I don’t understand,” Doctor Cho finally spoke. “You built this program. Why is it trying to kill us?” 

Tony had now walked to a nearby computer screen. Andi didn’t know what he was doing, but when he began to laugh, she felt dread pool in her stomach. _He’s an idiot_.

Clearly, he was testing the patience of everyone in that room, and Thor was the most pissed off right now. 

Bruce was subtly shaking his head, trying to tell Tony to stop, but it was too late. 

“You think this is funny?” Thor asked, taking a step toward Tony. Did the guy have a death wish? 

“No,” Tony turned to him. “It’s probably not, right? This is so terrible. It’s so terrible.” There was uncertainty to his tone, and a hint of sarcasm. The snarky smile on his face did nothing to ease the tension in the room. 

“This could have been avoided if you hadn’t played with something you don’t understand,” Thor continued. 

“No,” Tony interrupted. “I’m sorry. It _is_ funny. It’s a hoot that you don’t _get_ why we _need_ this.” 

“Tony, the Avengers were supposed to be different from Shield,” Steve cut in, walking toward him. At this point, there was a lot of talk that Andi was not aware of but she had briefly heard of Shield while she was with Strucker. He often ranted about the people from there. 

“Anybody remember when I carried a nuke through a wormhole?” Tony countered, glancing around. “Not you of course, you weren’t there,” he spoke as he looked to Andi. “But a hostile alien army came charging through a hole in space. We’re standing 300 feet below it.”

There was silence all around, and Tony took the cue to continue speaking. “We’re the Avengers. We can bust arms dealers all the livelong day, but that up there… that’s the endgame. How were you guys planning on beating that?” 

Nobody spoke, except for Steve. “Together.” 

Tony pursed his lips. “We’ll lose.”

Steve regarded him for a moment before speaking again. “Then we’ll do that together too.” 

 

 

* * *

 

The Maximoff Twins regarded the facility they had been kept in for the past year. Most of it had turned to rubble, but the underneath, where Strucker had been working on other things, was still mostly intact. And this is where Ultron led them. 

There were a lot more robots, however. That was the only difference from the last time the twins were there. 

“These are all…” 

“Me,” Ultron finished Wanda’s sentence. He was now in a new robotic body. “I have what the Avengers never will. Harmony.” All around, as if to prove his point, robots were at work. Neither of the twins knew what he was truly doing, but it seemed to be some kind of robotic army. And it was still in the works. 

“The avengers are discordant,” Ultron continued. “Disconnected. Stark’s already got them turning on each other.” 

At the very name, Pietro’s face shifted, to an expression of hatred. Ultron noticed this. “I read your files. I know you lost your parents in the bombings.” 

“We were ten years old,” Pietro said softly as he looked at Ultron. 

“I wondered why you two were the only ones to survive Strucker’s experiments,” Ultron said. “Now I know why. We’ll make everything right.” 

“We weren’t the only ones,” Wanda corrected him. That didn’t seem to surprise Ultron, but Wanda continued Anyway. “There’s another. A girl. She was here before us. She went through the same."

“She went through _worse_ , because of Strucker and his minions,” Pietro spat, clearly only getting angrier. 

“You’re close to her,” Ultron looked between Wanda and Pietro. “Which means you can get her to see which side is the right one. Like I said, we’ll make everything right.” 

Ultron looked to Pietro. “You and I… we can hurt them. But,” he glanced to Wanda and stepped closer to her. “But you… you will tear them apart from the inside.” 


	10. suit up

Needless to say, Andi barely got any sleep that night. While Hydra was one step closer to being shut down, thanks to the Avengers, the world was also facing a new threat. It seemed there was no end to the evil in the world, but Andi supposed she shouldn’t be so surprised by that. Her father always preached that to her, when he recited his sermons in the hopes that it would have some effect on her. 

_While there is good in the world, there will always be evil to balance things out_. 

And Andi was seeing now how true it was. After all, she hadn’t been exposed to much of the good till recently. 

Andi knew it was morning when light began to stream in through a small gap in the curtains, and it was the only excuse she needed to get out of bed. Still dressed in the jeans and T-shirt she had worn to the party the previous night, Andi got into the lift and headed straight upstairs, to the scene of the crime. 

The elevator opened up into the room that looked the same way it did before she went to bed last night. Broken glass littered the floor, along with a lot more debris from whatever else was broken because of Ultron’s robots. Glass crunched underneath her sneakers as she made her way further into the room, only to pause when she heard voices. She recognised them immediately. It was Maria Hill, in conversation with Steve. 

“He’s all over the globe,” Hill was saying as she walked with Steve. “Robotics labs, weapons facilities. Reports of a metal man, or metal men, coming in and emptying the place.” 

It sounded a lot like Ultron was creating a robot army. A heavily armed one. But what did he hope to accomplish? Surely the extinction of the Avengers couldn’t be the only thing on his mind. 

“Fatalities?” Steve asked as they began to climb a set of stairs. Andi remained underneath it, able to see them a bit through the slits between each stair. 

“Only when engaged,” Hill replied. “Mostly there are guys left in a fugue state, complaining about bad memories and worst fears, and ‘something too fast to see’.” 

Andi recognised that description immediately, and so did Steve, apparently.

“The Maximoffs,” he concluded with a small sigh, their voices getting more distant as they walked further away from her. Andi followed, now mounting the stairs as well. “Makes sense that he’d go to them. They have someone in common.” 

“Except they don’t.” The two of them stopped at the top of the stairs and Andi peered from around the corner to see Hill handing Steve a tablet. She caught a glimpse of a dead body, but she didn’t need a longer look to recognise the face of the man who had tormented her for a good part of her life. Strucker was dead. 

The two continued walking and Andi followed again, this time not bothering with being quiet. Steve and Hill had gotten further ahead of her already, and she bumped right into Clint as he came out of a hallway to join the rest of the team. 

“What are you doing up?” He asked, raising an eyebrow but not stopping in his stride toward the labs. Andi took that as encouragement to keep going along with him. 

“Can’t wake up if you were never asleep,” Andi murmured in response, shoving her hands into the pockets of her jeans. 

“Whatever Ultron is up to, we’ll figure it out and put a stop to it,” Clint assured her, slowing his pace a little bit so she could keep up with his longer strides. 

“I know,” Andi nodded. “And I intend to help.” 

Clint, for whatever reason, didn’t argue with that logic like Andi had expected him to. Or maybe it was because they had already entered the lab and a conversation was going on. 

“Strucker knew something that Ultron wanted us to miss. That explains why he was taken care of,” Steve was saying, while Tony looked at the picture of dead Strucker on the tablet. He looked up briefly when she and Clint entered and he met her gaze momentarily. It looked like he wanted to say something, but decided against it when Natasha spoke.

“Yeah, everything we had on Strucker has been erased,” the redhead explained, staring at a computer screen.

“No,” Tony piped up and all eyes went to him. “Not everything.” 

And like that, moments later, all the Avengers — and Andi — were digging through paper trails, for anything they could find that could connect the dots or make sense. Andi honestly didn’t even know what she was looking for but she looked through files anyway. 

“Baron Strucker had a lot of friends,” Bruce murmured as he opened up a file. 

Andi glanced his way and so did Tony. He managed to speak before her, even though they realised the same thing. “I know that guy.”

Bruce got up and walked over to Tony, handing him the file. Andi moved in closer as well to get a better look at the picture. She definitely recognised him. Her green eyes travelled up higher on the page to read the name. _Ulysses Klaue._

“He operates off the African Coast,” Tony continued. “Black market arms.” 

At that, Steve shot Tony a disapproving glance and Tony sighed. “There are conventions, all right? You meet people. I didn’t sell him anything,” he defended himself. “But I remember him talking about finding something new. A game-changer.” 

“I know him too,” she piped up, and then all gazes landed on her. 

“You’ve met him?” Natasha asked, walking closer, but also carefully as though she didn’t want to trigger something within her. 

Andi nodded, prying her gaze from the picture and looking to the redhead. “Well, not exactly _met_ , but he and Strucker have been in contact. I remember Strucker always talking about something called Vibranium.”

It was clear that Andi had no clue what Vibranium truly was, but the shared look between Tony and Steve told her that they definitely knew. 

“What’s that?” Thor spoke up, and they all turned their attention back to the file. Thor was pointing at some marking on Klaue’s neck. “Looks like a brand.” 

Andi shivered, thinking back to the time she was branded. Well, technically there were two types, if she counted the tattoo she’d been given while under experimentation. Instinctively, her hand lifted to rub the back of her neck, her fingers grazing the _07_ that was etched into her skin permanently with black ink. 

Bruce made quick work of looking up what the branding was online, and he finally got the answer. “It’s a word in an African dialect, supposedly means thief.” Andi didn’t understand anything from that, and Bruce continued. “The dialect is Wakandan.”

Tony and Steve shared yet another look, which everyone noticed. “So Ultron is going to try and acquire vibranium.”

Andi furrowed her eyebrows together in confusion. “I don’t get it. What’s so important about vibranium?” 

“It’s the strongest metal on Earth,” Steve said, glancing briefly to his shield that was sitting on top of one of the tables in the lab. 

When he said that, Andi needed no more explanation. It was clear what Ultron wanted with the vibranium now. And Andi spoke the words that everyone was thinking. “He’s going to make himself a stronger body.” A near indestructible one, in fact.

“Where is Klaue now?” Clint asked, walking closer to the group. 

“Somewhere in the African Coast, probably,” Tony replied. Andi could practically see the gears turning in his head as he came up with some kind of attack plan. “We have to stop Ultron from getting any vibranium.”

Steve nodded. “If you can try and pinpoint his location, we can get there on a jet and hopefully stop things before they even begin,” he glanced to everyone else.

Everyone nodded, and so did Andi, which caught Tony’s attention. “I’m sorry, but did you think we were letting you come along?”

Andi stared at him for a moment before slowly nodding. “Well, yeah. I can help you. And right now you need all the help you can get.”

“Yes, but you’re a kid, and that’s where I draw the line,” Tony explained, clearly not willing to budge. “This isn’t some kind of joyride or a field trip. Ultron is getting stronger, and the twins—“ 

“The twins trust me,” Andi cut him off. “They were the only friends I had in those labs and even though our situations were different in those labs, they looked out for me. I can try and talk to them. They’ll listen to me.”

Tony still seem unconvinced but before he could say anything, Thor spoke up. “She might be right.” 

“Are we actually sitting here and debating over letting a fourteen-year-old come on a dangerous mission with us?” Tony retorted, glancing to Steve with an expression that Andi guessed meant he hoped he had a supporter in this. 

“She may be fourteen but she’s as strong as any of us, if not more,” Natasha spoke up, causing Andi to glance at her. Nat crossed her arms and looked at her as she spoke. “I saw the way you destroyed one of those bots last night. I’m pretty sure you could do much more, given the chance.” 

“We didn’t take her away from a life of being a weapon for Strucker to become a weapon for us,” Clint added on. 

“I didn’t want to be with Strucker. But I want to help here. There’s a huge difference between what Strucker does and what you guys do,” Andi insisted, looking to Tony again. “I’m the only one who has a chance at trying to talk down the twins.” 

Tony was not happy at all with the idea, but most of them were looking to Steve for some kind of input. He sighed and looked at Andi briefly. “You can stay in the parked jet with Banner. I don’t doubt that you’re strong, kid,” Steve told her. “But we’re not bringing you into the direct line of fire unless absolutely necessary.”

Andi figured she wasn’t going to get any better than that. At least if she was going, even if forced to stay in a parked jet away from the action, she could figure out a way to get to the twins. It was better than being stuck here and feeling helpless when she _knew_ she could help.

Tony still didn’t seem very pleased with the idea, but for the time being he didn’t say anything. Deep down, Andi felt like he knew they could use her, but he wasn’t ready to let someone like her risk their lives. To Andi, it spoke volumes about his character, even if she was mildly annoyed by the fact that he was basically acting like he could tell her what to do. She understood where he was coming from, and that kind of cautiousness from another person regarding her wellbeing was not something she was used to. She wasn’t sure how to think. 

She didn’t get much time to think about it in any case, though, because Steve spoke again, urging them to prepare themselves. “All right, everyone. Suit up.” 


	11. things were not going well

Andi didn’t really have anything for her to ‘suit up’. Unlike the rest of them, she had no kind of gear or outfit. Just her powers, which she had never actually used in this kind of scenario before. 

Digging around through the clothes she had bought for herself when Clint took her out, she found a pair of black tights and a black T-shirt that was slightly more suited to her frame than the _Stark Industries_ shirt she wore when she was indoors. It wasn’t exactly battle attire but it would have to do. 

Before she knew it, she was on a jet, along with the Avengers, speeding through the sky toward the Arican Coast. She had no idea how they got there so fast since it seemed like they were casually just floating from within the jet. It was some great technology, she had to admit that.

Soon enough, they landed at the shipyard, and the back of the jet opened up. They slowly started to file out, with Tony hanging back. “Banner, you’re on call but hopefully it won’t come to that,” he said before looking at Andi. “You. Stay. Don’t try to be a hero.” And with that, he too was gone, leaving Andi alone with Bruce. 

“I don’t think they thought this through completely if they preferred having you in a contained jet with _me_ rather than on the ship with them,” Bruce said, and Andi assumed it was an attempt at humour. Which was admittedly funny. 

Andi glanced to him before walking to sit down in one of the co-pilot chairs. “You should give yourself more credit,” she told him softly. 

Bruce tilted his head to the side a bit before shaking his head. “Not really. Maybe I could, if it was possible to control… the other guy. But it’s not. At least, not always.” He moved slowly to sit down as well, a seat away from her, but he was staring at a point on the wall behind her instead of at her. “What good is a superpower if you need someone else to help calm you down?”

“I think it’s amazing,” Andi said without hesitation, causing Bruce to look at her with a little confusion. “You’ve got the strength, and you’ve got the brains.” She continued. “You’re indestructible. If you were in control of that too, you’d be too perfect and heroes can’t be perfect.” 

Bruce looked at her for a moment. “What makes you say that?” 

Andi shrugged, but took a moment to think of her answer before responding. “I’ve been around people who have always strived for perfection. They wanted it in me. They wanted it in themselves. But they could never achieve it because it’s kind of impossible. Only, they refused to understand that,” Andi explained, meeting Bruce’s gaze. “Seeking perfection… that’s not what makes a hero. It’s what makes people bad. Like Ultron, thinking he can perfect a solution for world peace. But you… You know you’re not perfect. That alone makes you way better than a lot of people, even if you feel the need to smash stuff every once in a while.” 

Bruce looked at her long and hard for a moment, and he opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, there was some noise on the intercom. Both Andi and Bruce looked to the speaker and Bruce got up to press a button, allowing him to speak into a mic. “Guys?” He called out. “Is this a code green?” There was nothing but noise on the other end, but Andi guessed that things were not going well. 

Bruce continued to try and contact the others through the intercom, but Andi had other ideas. She knew she was supposed to stay put but she couldn’t. Maybe catching Wanda and Pietro by surprise would help. She needed to try. 

So, while Bruce was occupied, Andi snuck out of the jet through the doors that were already open when the others got off earlier. She could see the ship in the distance, among a bunch of others that were just stuck on land rather than water. It was just a couple of feet away, so she broke into a run toward it. She was only halfway there when there was a loud sound of metal against metal, and her gaze flew up to the sky to see Ultron grappling with Tony, who was in his Iron Man suit. 

Things were _definitely_ not going well. 

Looking back down, Andi caught sight of a back door that was opened slightly so she went straight for it. As soon as she was in the ship, sounds of battle surrounded her. She was on a bottom floor, but she looked up through a metal grill just in time to see a flash of blue. Just like that, a couple of people were knocked to the ground, including Captain America. 

She doubted Pietro would notice her but considering he was not by Wanda’s side, she had a feeling the other Maximoff twin was working her own magic, most likely with the members of the Avengers that Andi could not currently see. 

Andi decided to get a floor higher, through a staircase she found off to the side. The area was suddenly quiet, and Andi realised why only once she got on top. Off to one side, Thor was walking like he was dazed, and his eyes were red, clouded by a vision. Wanda had gotten to him. 

Not far away, she spotted Steve moving to sit down on the floor, clouded by a vision as well. 

Knowing she had to work quickly, Andi moved away from Thor and Steve, and behind a few large metal structures that were situated like a maze. She didn’t sense so much death, fortunately, but she also couldn’t tell where Clint and Natasha were. 

Andi had just come up from behind a set of gears when she saw, straight ahead, Clint stationed at a corner and looking down over the ledge in front of him, bow and arrow in hand. Not far behind him was Wanda, slowly making her way to him as discreetly as possible. Andi’s gaze flew to Wanda’s hand and she saw the red mist floating around her fingers, ready to claim another victim. 

Without thinking, Andi shot forward just as Wanda lifted her hands, and the red mist that should have projected onto Clint, hit Andi instead. Her eyes glazed over, irises turning red, and she became unbalanced on her feet. 

 

* * *

 

“Andi?” Clint muttered in surprise, holding a hand out to grab her arm and prevent her from falling. It didn’t really help though, because almost immediately, he let go to grab an electric arrow before putting the tip of it to Wanda’s forehead. She froze up and her body began to spasm a bit, as small electric currents coursed through her body. Sudden wind pushed Clint back and he fell through a glass window and onto the other side. 

Pietro stood in his place, removing the arrow from Wanda’s head and picking his sister up. His gaze briefly landed on Andi who had now fallen to her knees, hands reaching out to hold onto something to keep her steady. Pietro knew what she had been through in the labs and so he knew what she was experiencing right now. Her fears. 

Pietro hesitated. He could take Andi away from there, but he also knew her views were not aligned with his and his sister’s. As much as he hated that she had been hit with Wanda’s power, there was nothing he could do. He just shot Clint an enraged look because he blamed him for what happened to both girls, and then he sped off with Wanda. 

Clint got up and dusted himself off just as Tony’s voice entered his earpiece. “We could really use a lullaby right now. Those twins got to Banner and he’s taking to the streets., but I don’t know where Andi is so I’m going to go check out the jet—“ 

“She’s here,” Clint spoke back, climbing through the broken window to see Andi curled up in a ball on the floor. Whatever she was seeing… it couldn’t be good. “She snuck in during the fight so she’s safe from Banner but… like the rest of the team, she’s down. I’d be down too if it weren’t for her but you’re going to have to subdue Banner on your own. There’s no backup here.” 

Bending down, he helped Andi to her feet. She was groggy, barely moving on her own, but he managed to get her up and walking till he came across Nat, in a similar state. 

“Alright. I’m calling in Veronica,” Tony said. And while he took care of the Hulk rampaging through town, Clint got to the rest of the team and helped them get to the jet, where they remained on standby till Tony dealt with their code green. 

 

 


	12. everyone took a hit

_“Mija.”_

_Andi blinked and suddenly she wasn’t in a ship anymore. No, she was back in the labs. The ones she grew up in. Her mother was in front of her, and beside her, two men in white coats. They held syringes in their hand. Andi knew they were meant for her._

_“You’re doing very well, mija,” her mother spoke, a tight smile on her face. It was very clearly forced, but Andi, as a child, did not notice that. “Soon enough you’ll be stronger. The strongest. You’re capable of quite a lot but we need you to be better.”_

_Andi wasn’t responding. Nor was she moving because she was strapped down to a bed. Upon looking down at her body, and seeing a bit of blood around her wrists, Andi realised it was because she had been fighting against her restraints._

_“No more trouble this time, okay? We don’t want to put you in solitary again because it slows down our process.”_

_Andi knew what that meant. Flashes of all the times she had been confined to a cell after being injected with something that turned her brain to jelly. Andi could see and speak to the dead but in confinement, there was just so much she saw and heard that she was barely able to speak for hours once she was out. Sleep was impossible to come by for days._

_“And tomorrow we’re going to upgrade the tests,” her mother continued while the two men came to stand on either side of Andi. “Baron Strucker recently acquired a stone that could help speed up the tests and enhance the effects on you. I know you’ll do me proud, mija.”_

_Whether or not she actually did, Andi did not know. But her vision began to black out as the men stuck needles into her neck and it felt like fire was coursing through her veins._

 

* * *

 

Andi’s eyes fluttered open and she was somewhere different again. Not in a ship and not in the labs, but in the jet. There was a voice drifting through the air. Andi recognised it. Agent Hill. She wasn’t listening to what she was saying through the intercom though. Instead, her eyes moved around, and she noticed that everyone else seemed to be dazed, just like she was, because of something Wanda had forced them to see. 

Andi had never actually gotten a taste of Wanda’s power directly because Wanda always refused to use it on her, no matter what, an even this time, it was more of an accident because Andi had gotten in the way. But she realised just how powerful that one ability was. Just like Andi had yet to reveal the same of her own powers. She was just too scared to. 

“There’s been no call for Banner’s official arrest but it’s in the air,” Hill was saying. The voice was close by and Andi turned to her right to see Tony sitting in a chair and looking at Agent Hill through a screen. Andi herself was curled up on the floor right beside him but she slowly moved into a sitting position. 

“How’s the team?” Hill asked. 

“Everyone’s… we all took a hit. We’ll shake it off,” Tony said, glancing back at Andi briefly. Upon realising she was awake, he stood up. 

“Well, until we find Ultron, stay in stealth mode. And away from here,” Agent Hill advised, to which Tony nodded before the screen went blank. 

Tony moved from his chair and went to sit down on a ledge next to Andi. He wasn’t looking at her, but she knew he wanted to say something. 

Since he didn’t say anything yet, though, Andi jumped at the chance. “Where are we going?” 

Tony let out a small sigh and clasped his hands together, while glancing briefly at Clint, who was at the controls. “A safe house, apparently.” He then looked at Andi. “You still think you can reach out to the twins?” 

“She didn’t do this to me on purpose,” Andi said softly. 

Tony nodded and looked down at his hands. “Clint told me. And I remember telling you not to be a hero.” 

“That’s not really something you can decide whether or not to do,” Andi argued. “I saw an opportunity to help, and I took it.”

“And it was an accident that could have been way worse. Or could have caused more physical instead of mental damage. Damage that you might not have come back from,” Tony retorted, looking at her. “And if something like that had happened, I feel like that’s on me.” 

Andi was about to protest and say that it didn’t need to be on him but he stopped her. 

“I know what you’re going to say,” Tony sighed and put his head in his hands. “Look, I don’t… I’m not great with situations like these, but you took a hit and that’s exactly what I was trying to prevent. I took you away from the labs that day because I didn’t want you to go through any of that anymore but you’re making that hard by putting yourself into those situations on your own. That’s not what you deserve.” 

Andi bit down on her lower lip and looked down at the floor, unsure of what to say. She wasn’t used to compassion, or people caring about her. The twins came at a hard time in her life and though they were caring, they also had their agendas. Tony… he had goals too, but he apparently wasn’t willing to use everyone to try and achieve it. Not if it meant harm could come to those involved.

But it was still her choice to make. Tony may have saved her but she wanted to fight the good fight. 

“Let’s just put this on the back burner for a while. You need to rest,” Tony said, interrupting her thoughts. He reached out and very awkwardly patted her shoulder, whilst looking away. 

“All right, kids,” Clint’s voice sounded throughout the jet. “We’re home.”


	13. these must all be agents

By the time the jet landed, it was early morning. The sun was just coming up and Andi could only see the streaks of orange in the sky when the jet landed in a field of grass. There seemed to be nothing for miles, except for a cottage and a barn. A safe house, like Clint said. It looked more… homely, than Andi expected of a safe house. 

Nevertheless, as everyone got off the jet, she followed, hanging behind the rest of them. Everyone was still recovering from whatever they’d been forced to see from Wanda. Right up in front, Natasha was being helped along by Clint, who had a protective arm around her. It made Andi feel warm inside. This group of people may have their arguments,but here and there, people cared for one another. A part of Andi envied it. It was something she had been deprived of. 

Tony hung back as well, falling into step beside Andi. She couldn’t tell if it was for silent support or if it was to make sure she didn’t do anything reckless again. Either way, she said nothing as they climbed the porch and followed everyone into the house. 

“Honey?” Clint called out, causing Andi’s eyebrows to furrow slightly in confusion. “I’m home.”

The house was decorated rather… normally. It looked nothing like a safe house. There were no weapons stashed anywhere, or beeping monitors like the ones that filled most of the Avengers tower. There was a hallway that led to a living room, and Andi got a peak at some sofas, and a fireplace that was currently not lit. 

Clint led them into the kitchen, where on top of the counter sat a chopping board and a loaf of bread, along with a jar that read ‘peanut butter’. Something Andi had never tried.

And from another hallway, a woman stepped into the kitchen. She had fair skin and dark hair and kind, brown eyes. But what jumped out to Andi most was her swollen stomach. She was pregnant. 

“I’ve got company,” Clint said, nodding to the group before walking over to embrace the woman and give her a quick kiss. “Sorry I didn’t call ahead.” 

“This is an agent of some kind,” Tony muttered, looking to the others as though that could be the only explanation here. 

“Gentleman,” Clint said, turning to face them before glancing briefly at Andi. “And lady,” he added with a small smile. “This is Laura. My wife.”

 _Wife._ Andi hadn’t known that Clint had a girlfriend, let alone was married with a kid on the way. How had he been able to juggle a normal life and the life of an Avenger? It made her think back to her first conversation with Clint, when he suggested she could find a way to have both too.

“I know all of your names,” Laura said with a nervous smile and a wave before her eyes landed on Andi. “Except yours.” 

Before Andi could respond, Clint did it for her. “That’s Andi. Kind of our… newest recruit,” he gave her a small smile. 

Andi wasn’t sure what to think of that but nobody got the chance to say anything else because just then, from the outside hallway, a young girl and a boy, probably a couple years younger than Andi, ran inside. 

“Dad!” The girl yelled in excitement before bounding into Clint’s arms. He picked her up and ruffled his son’s hair whilst the rest of them looked on with even more surprise. 

“These are… smaller agents,” Tony concluded, still unable to accept the fact that Clint had a family. And a big one at that. Andi was just surprised that none of them knew this whole time. 

Well, except Natasha. She seemed to be the only one not surprised. In fact, the little girl hopped away from her father, to run right into Natasha’s arms. “Auntie Nat!” 

Steve cleared his throat and decided to speak up now since there was a lot of silence from their end. “Sorry for barging in on you,” he said, speaking to Laura. 

Tony nodded. “Yeah, we were busy having no idea that you existed.” 

Clint chuckled softly and wrapped an arm around his wife’s shoulders. “Yeah, Fury helped me set this up when I joined. He kept it off of S.H.I.E.L.D’s files, and I’d like to keep it that way. I figured it’s a good place to lay low.”

Andi looked around at the happy family and it tugged at her heartstrings. It made her happy to see that Clint had a family, a home he could go back to. And it kind of explained to her why he’d been soft on her when she arrived, instead of assuming like the rest — except for Tony — that she could be a spy. He had everything. Why was he still risking his life as an Avenger? 

Heavy footsteps jerked her from her thoughts and she looked up to see Thor brush past her, Steve following quickly after as they made their way out of the house. Andi didn’t understand what that was about, but it wasn’t her place to snoop around so she stayed put. 

“Hey,” Andi looked up to see that Laura had approached her. She had a soft expression, which allowed Andi to let her guard down a little. “Come on, I’ll show you to your room.” 

Since Andi knew there was nothing she could do right now, she allowed Laura to lead her upstairs, with the hope that things would get better soon. 

 

* * *

 

“See? You worried about nothing,” Clint told his wife as she inspected his torso. The repair that Doctor Cho had done to his body with the tissue regeneration had made it look as good as new. 

Rolling his shirt down, he looked at Laura as she met his gaze. “If all those people are staying here tonight, some of them are going to have to double up,” she said with a small smile.

Clint chuckled because he knew that was unlikely. “Yeah, that’s never going to sell,” he explained, walking into the bedroom closet to grab a flannel shirt.

“Really?” Laura questioned, moving to sit down on the edge of their bed. “What about Nat and Doctor Banner? How long has that been going on?” 

“Nat and… Banner?” Clint asked, pausing in his movements. The thought never occurred to him. 

Laura laughed a little louder, clearly amused. “You are so cute,” she commented as her laughter died down. 

“Really?” Clint asked. Could he have been so blind to that? He never really noticed anything was going on between the two of them but… well, Nat was his best friend. How had he _not_ noticed? 

“I’ll explain when you’re older,” Laura smirked and walked over to him as he pulled on the flannel shirt. She just watched him for a moment and he arched an eyebrow while he worked at folding up his sleeves. “It’s bad, right? Nat seems pretty shaken. They all do. And… that kid…” 

Clint sighed and leaned against the doorframe. “Ultron has these… allies,” he explained. “They’re punks, really. But they carry a big damn stick.” 

Laura nodded slowly. “And Andi? Where did she come in?” 

“She was in the facility where we found the scepter. She was kept there against her will… almost her whole life,” Clint explained, moving away from Laura to go stand by the window. As he looked out, he could see Andi, sitting in the grass and plucking at it aimlessly. She took a hit too, just like the rest of them. 

“And you saved her,” Laura surmised, walking to stand beside him. 

“Well, I was busy reeling from being hit in the gut,” he chuckled softly and glanced to his wife briefly. “But Tony did, yeah. She’s been through a lot. And now she’s going through more. Nat took a hit because of those punks. And so did she. They need to be taught some manners.” 

“By you?” Laura asked, arching an eyebrow and staring at him. 

“They need me,” he said, continuing to stare outside the window. Tony and Steve had now entered the clearing, and were in conversation. Looking at them, at Andi who had thrown herself into the line of fire to prevent him from being hit by Wanda, he knew he had to help them. One last time. 

“You know I’m proud of you, for the whole avenging thing,” Laura said with a smile, wrapping her arms around his neck. “But in a few months, we’re going to be outnumbered,” she said, glancing to her swollen belly between them before looking back up to him again. “And I’ll need you.” 

Clint nodded and smiled, leaning forward to kiss her forehead. “And I’ll be here,” he assured her. “I promise.” 

 

 


	14. i don't trust a guy without a dark side

Andi watched as an axe came down hard, chopping a piece of wood into two. Her gaze lifted to see Tony’s expression. She sat down on a log just a few feet away, right between Tony and Steve who were busy chopping wood, and she was dressed in fresh clothes now — the same black tights were on, but she had changed out of her dusty black t-shirt in favour for one of Clint’s flannel shirts that floated over her frail frame. 

“Thor didn’t say where he was going to get answers?” Tony asked Cap as he lined up another piece of wood to split in half. 

“Sometimes my team mates don’t tell me things,” Cap replied, picking up his own axe and preparing to chop more wood as well. “I was kind of hoping Thor would be the exception.”

“Yeah, give him time,” Tony murmured, setting the wood down and lifting his axe. “We don’t know what the Maximoff kid showed him.” As he said that, he let the aze fall, slicing the piece of wood into two. Almost simultaneously, Andi got a flash of what she had seen when Wanda had hit her with her powers. She shook her head trying to rid her mind of that feeling. 

“We’re Earth’s mightiest heroes,” Steve murmured, bringing his axe down on a piece of wood. “She pulled us apart like cotton candy.”

Tony stopped and looked at him. “Seems like you walked away all right.” 

Andi lifted her gaze from the grass to look at Tony with a concerned expression. _What is he trying to do_?

Steve paused and looked back at Tony with a slightly confused and somewhat curious expression. “Is that a problem?” 

“I don’t trust a guy without a dark side,” Tony explained, fiddling with his axe. “Call me old-fashioned.” 

“Well let’s just say you haven’t seen it yet,” Steve replied, and Andi sensed a hint of annoyance in his tone. He went back to chopping wood but Tony continued speaking.

“You know Ultron is trying to tear us apart, right?” 

“Well I guess you’d know,” Steve sliced another piece of wood in half. “Whether you’d tell us is a bit of a question.” 

“Banner and I were doing research,” Tony defended himself, tone getting a little louder, which alarmed Andi. This was not what they came to a safe house for. This was exactly what Ultron wanted, to divide and conquer. But what could Andi do? She was a kid, in their eyes. 

“That would affect the team,” Steve retorted.

“That would _end_ the team. Isn’t that the mission? Isn’t that the ‘Why we fight’? So we can end the fight? So we get to go home?”

The next piece of wood that Steve cut in half was done using his bare hands, which to Andi clearly said he was annoyed. And maybe a little frustrated.

“Every time someone tries to win a war before it starts, innocent people die,” Steve told Tony. “Every time.” 

Tony stared at Steve, his expression shifting, perhaps even softening, but whatever he was about to say was cut short when Laura approached them. “I’m sorry, Mister Stark,” she said softly, an apologetic smile on her face. “Clint said you wouldn’t mind but our tractor doesn’t start at all and I thought you might—“ 

“Yeah,” Tony nodded. “I’ll, uh, give her a kick.” He gave Steve one last look before turning in the direction of the barn and beginning to walk there. “Don’t steal from my pile,” Tony called back to Steve, without looking back. 

Andi glanced to the pile of wood Tony had chopped — which was significantly less than what Steve had achieved — before she looked to the blond who was watching Tony go. 

“You know he’s just worried, right?” Andi said to him, craning her neck to look up at him from where she sat. “All he wants to do is not worry anymore.”

Steve looked at her for a moment before opting to sit down on the log beside hers. “Yeah, but he’s willing to do anything to achieve that,” he muttered, looking down at his hands. “That’s not the way we do things.”

“How can you make that call if you don’t know whether it will actually work or not?” Andi asked curiously, causing Steve to lift his head and look at her. 

“Because we can’t take that risk if it ends up not working,” Steve explained, which was a simple enough answer, so Andi nodded, but she wasn’t done speaking. 

“Okay,” she said softly. “But it seems to me like you both are seeing each other as the enemy just because of your different ideas, and that’s not right because you’re a team,” explained with a small shrug. “I don’t know what Wanda made you see, but she made him see things too. I was there. It was right before he took the scepter from the facility I was kept in. Maybe it needs to just be more clear to both of you that you’re on the same side.” 

Steve bit down on his lower lip and looked at the grass for a long, hard moment. “You’d make a good Avenger, kid,” he said, shifting his gaze back to her for moment. “But there’s a lot more at play here. It isn’t that easy.” 

Andi shrugged yet again. “I know there’s a lot I don’t know, Mister Rogers. But what I _do_ know is what it looks like to be after one thing that just benefits one person. If you think this idea that Mister Stark has is him being caught up in the moment, blinded by a dream, it isn’t. Accidents happen but I feel like he’s given this a lot more thought than we realise. And I’m not saying it’s the way to go. I’m just saying… you need to believe that you both are on the same side.”

Right now, that would be the only thing that would help them in the fight against Ultron because they needed as many people as they could get.


	15. he wants to become better

Tony climbed into the dusty barn, his eyes set on the old, slightly rusted tractor that sat within it. Here and there Tony spotted targets and broken arrows, which made it seem a lot like Clint’s place. 

Tugging on a string, a light came on above the tractor and he ran his hand over the dusty surface. “Hello, dear,” he murmured, testing the knob at the engine. “Tell me everything. What ails you?” He checked the fuel pipe and poked around inside. 

“Do me a favour,” another voice came, alarming Tony for a brief moment, before filling him with annoyance because he recognised that voice. He turned to the side to see Nick Fury coming in through the back of the barn. “Try not to bring it to life.” 

Tony sighed. “Why Miss Barton, you little minx,” he murmured and walked closer to where Fury had come to a standstill. “I get it. Maria Hill called you, right? Was she ever _not_ working for you?” 

“Artificial intelligence,” Fury said, hands in his pockets. So he’d been brought up to speed on Ultron. And Tony and Bruce’s little research. “You never even hesitated.” 

Tony pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look, it’s been a really long day, so how about we skip to the part where you’re useful?” 

“Look me in the eye and tell me you’re going to shut him down.” 

Tony stared at him. “You’re not the director of me.”

“I’m not the director of anybody,” Fury replied, taking a seat on a wooden stool that sat near a workspace. “I’m just an old man who cares very much about you.” 

Tony looked away, fiddling with his fingers. “And I’m the man who killed the Avengers.”

When Tony saw Fury’s confused expression, he continued. “I saw it. I didn’t tell the team though. How could I? I saw them all dead, Nick. I felt it. The whole world too. Because of me.” Tony moved back a bit to find another chair in the room and he sat down, a few feet away from Fury. “I wasn’t ready. I didn’t do all I could.” 

“The Maximoff girl is working you, Stark,” Fury explained. “Playing on your fear.” 

“I wasn’t tricked, I was shown,” Tony insisted. “It wasn’t a nightmare, it was my legacy. The end of the path I started us on.”He couldn’t help but believe that if he didn’t do something, it would be an end to the Avengers. An end to the people he cared about. And slowly, that group was getting bigger. He couldn’t handle it if the casualties also increased in number. 

“You come up with some pretty impressive inventions, Tony,” Fury rose from his chair to stand. “War isn’t one of them.” 

“I watched my friends die,” Tony said, aimlessly grabbing a nearby wrench from the table beside him and beginning to clean it with a cloth he had fount next to it. “You’d think that’d be as bad as it gets, right? Nope. It wasn’t the worst part. And now… now there’s this kid. Of course you know all about her, Hill would have gotten you up to speed.” 

Fury nodded, but said nothing. So Tony continued. “I just… there’s so much at risk. And I felt helpless. I still do,” Tony shrugged, setting the wrench aside and looking at Fury as he made his way over. “You’d think that’d be as bad as it gets, right? Nope. Watching them die, it wasn’t the worst part.”

Fury nodded. “The worst part, is that _you_ didn’t think that’d be as bad as it gets.” 

Tony glanced over at Fury and stared for a moment. He knew what Fury was here for. To get them to team up again and put an end to Ultron. But he was right. Tony’s thoughts… they may have blinded him along the way and started this whole thing, but he had to make it right. So, he just looked at Fury and nodded. 

 

* * *

 

“Ultron took you folks out of play to buy himself some time,” Fury explained to everyone now gathered in the kitchen. The sun had set and it was dark out. Natasha sat at the dining table with Clint’s daughter who was showing her a painting. Clint was at the sink, doing the dishes while Bruce sat close by. Steve stood in the doorway, listening intently to Fury as he leaned against a kitchen counter and sipped some orange juice.

Tony was with Andi, close tot he edge of the kitchen, where the two of them were taking turns at darts while Fury spoke. Andi had never played darts before, and when Tony suggested it and she started, she didn’t seem inclined to stop any time soon. Plus, she was better at it than Tony. 

“My contacts all say he’s building something,” Fury continued as Andi walked to the board to pluck out all the darts they’d thrown. She returned to Tony’s side and handed him three while she kept the other three. “The amount of vibranium he made off with, I don’t think it’s just one thing.” 

Andi threw her first dart as Steve spoke up. “What about Ultron himself?”

“Oh he’s easy to track,” Fury explained, sipping more juice. “He’s everywhere. Guy’s multiplying faster than a Catholic rabbit. Still doesn’t help us get an angle on any of his plans, though.”

Tony shot his dart, which was a few inches closer to the centre than Andi’s. “Is he still going after launch codes?” Tony asked, while Andi took her shot. 

“Yes, he is,” Fury nodded. “But he’s not making any headway.” 

Tony arched an eyebrow as though this was ridiculous. “I cracked the Pentagon’s firewall in _high school_ , on a dare,” he explained, glancing back to the board once Andi had taken her shot. Andi understood why that sounded ridiculous. If Ultron was everywhere, how was he not able to access nuclear launch codes? 

“Well,” Fury said, looking to Tony briefly. “I contacted our friends at the Nexus about that.” 

“Nexus?” Andi asked, glancing at the man in the eyepatch briefly before turning back to her game just as Tony fired another dart. It was quite close to her last shot, but not centre yet. 

“It’s the world internet hub in Oslo,” Bruce explained. “Every byte if data flows through there. Fastest access on Earth.” 

“Okay, so what did Nexus have to say?” Clint asked, folding his arms now that he was done with the dishes. A lot of this wasn’t making sense to Andi but she was trying to catch up. 

“He’s fixated on the missiles,” Fury said. “But the codes are constantly being changed.”

“By whom?” Tony asked as he walked to the board to collect all of his darts, just as Andi fired her last one. It hit the bullseye and she grinned while Tony, alarmed that he was nearly impaled by a dart, took a step back and glanced at her with initially surprise, but then with something of a crooked smile. 

“Parties unknown,” Fury answered, sitting down at the table a seat away from Natasha.

Tony grabbed the darts and walked back to Andi, handing them to her but this time not taking part in the game. Instead, he leaned against the kitchen counter and looked briefly at everyone. “I might need to go to Oslo then. Find our ‘parties unknown’.”

Natasha sighed and looked at Fury. “Well, this is good times, boss, but I was kind of hoping when I saw you, you’d have more than that.” 

Fury blinked. “I do,” he said and gestured to them all. “I have you.” 

And paused in throwing her dart to glance at the man. “Ultron says that the Avengers are the only thing between him and his mission. And whether he admits it or not, his mission is global destruction. So stand. And outwit that platinum bastard.” 

“Steve doesn’t like that kind of talk,” Natasha said with a smirk, causing Steve to laugh a little. 

“So, what does Ultron want?” Fury posed a question which got Andi thinking. She looked at the dart and the board, thinking of how she had gotten better with each turn. She thought back to Strucker and all he had ever wanted. 

Andi looked back up again, and at Fury. “He wants to become better. Better than the avengers. And that way… nothing stands in his way.”

Fury had the hint of a smile on his face but Andi’s gaze quickly flew to Steve as he began to speak, slowly nodding in agreement. “He keeps building bodies.” 

“Person bodies,” Tony chimed in. “The human body is inefficient. Biologically speaking, we’re outmoded but he keeps coming back to it.” 

“When you two programmed him to protect the human race, you _amazingly_ failed.” Natasha glanced between Tony and Bruce, the latter of whom had come to stand beside her now, whilst looking down at the painting of the butterfly Clint’s daughter had made. 

“They don’t need to be protected,” Bruce said softly, adjusting his glasses. “They need to evolve.” 

Everyone was looking to Bruce now, and Andi had abandoned the darts on the kitchen counter to move a little closer. Bruce lifted his gaze from the painting to look at them all. “Ultron’s going to evolve.” 

“How?” Fury asked, looking up at him. 

Bruce sighed. “Has anyone been in contact with Doctor Helen Cho?” 

Andi wasn’t sure what that meant, but Clint did. “Tissue regeneration,” he said softly, standing up straighter and looking to them all.

Bruce nodded. “That’s what he wanted vibranium for. He’s going to use the cradle that Doctor Cho uses for tissue regeneration to create a body for himself. A body made out of the strongest metal on earth.”


	16. you're done... except not

A mere two hours later, everyone was gearing up to head out now that they had a more definitive idea of what Ultron was up to. Tony was going to go to Oslo, to figure out why the launch codes kept changing, or rather, who was changing them. Steve, Natasha and Clint were going to check on the cradle to confirm if Ultron really _was_ making a body for himself, and Bruce was going to go to the Avengers tower. 

And Andi?

Well, for now she trailed behind Tony and Steve as they spoke. 

“I’ll join you as soon as I can,” Tony told Steve as the blond picked up his shield and strapped it to his back.

“If Ultron’s really building a body…” 

“He’ll be more powerful than any of us. Maybe all of us.” Tony finished Steve’s sentence with a nod. The two of them came to stand at the front door of the house. Andi wasn’t sure when the best time would be to butt in so for the time being she stayed quiet. 

“You know, I really missed the days when the weirdest thing science ever created was me,” Steve sighed. Andi understood that. She had heard of Captain America’s story, how he was way ahead of his timeline. Andi couldn’t imagine waking up so many years in the future. But then again, there were days when she was in the labs that she was surprised she woke up at all. 

Tony gave Steve something of a crooked smile just as Fury came in, putting his black jacket on. “I’ll drop Banner off at the tower,” he offered. 

Tony nodded and then glanced to Andi, who stood up straighter now that she was being acknowledged. “Take Andi with you.” 

“What?” Andi stepped forward. “But I—“ 

“Kid, you said you could talk to the Maximoff’s and one of them attacked you,” Tony cut her off. 

“By _accident_.”

“Either way, we’re not taking that chance again. You’re done, okay?” Tony said, in a tone that sounded a lot like he was scolding a puppy. 

Andi knew that there was no room for her to argue on the matter, but she didn’t nod either. Fury looked at her for a moment before nodding. “Come on then, Miss. We’ve got to reach as fast as we can.” He headed out the door, expecting her to follow. 

Andi hesitated, not wanting to go. She looked to Tony who was looking at her expectantly. He wasn’t going to move till he saw her leave the house, and she knew that. With a groan, she trudged forward and left the house. “Don’t fiddle around with anything in the tower!” Tony called out after her as she stepped off the porch. 

She had almost reached the jet that Fury had come there in, which was parked right next to the other one which Steve and the others would be taking. Glancing back quickly, Andi saw that Steve was still talking to Tony about something, and so, she took a deep breath and made a split second decision. 

Moving quickly, Andi slipped into the other jet, the one intended for Steve, Clint and Natasha. She was sure she would encounter the twins there. Maybe that would be her chance to try and reason with them. She just knew she had to try.

Hearing voices, Andi managed to open up a small door that had enough space for her small frame. She quickly got in and shut it just as the voices became louder, and she could hear footsteps against the metal floor of the jet. 

“All right.” It was Clint’s voice. “Let’s hit the road.”

It wasn’t long before Andi felt the jet beginning to move. When it became steady again, Andi figured they were cruising through the air, so she took that moment to pop open the door. 

Only, right as she did it, she faced Captain America who was stunned, and took a step back in surprise. “Andi?” 

“What?” Clint asked from up front at the controls. Andi crawled out of the space and shut the door as Clint and Natasha turned around in their seats. “What the hell are you doing here? You were supposed to be going back to the tower,” Clint said, his lips forming a thin line of disappointment.

“You snuck in,” Natasha observed, arching an eyebrow. Andi couldn’t be too sure but it sounded like she was mildly… impressed? 

“Yeah,” Andi muttered, standing near a large table kind of structure while the other three Avengers looked at her for some kind of explanation. 

“I thought—“

“That you could convince the twins to stop siding with Ultron?” Clint finished her sentence for her. “That didn’t go so well last time, kid.”

“Andi, this is dangerous work, and it’s putting us all at risk if we have to look out for you while doing our jobs,” Steve told her with a stern tone. 

“When are you going to understand that I’m not just some _kid_ ,” Andi protested. “I’ve been through stuff that no kid my age should ever be exposed to. I endured it and I got these abilities because of it. Don’t let those years of torture be a waste. Not when I can _help_ you.” 

“You just got out of that hell hole,” Natasha commented, her tone soft. She got up from her chair and walked over to Andi, placing a hand on her shoulder. “You want to put your abilities to use, that’s fine. We can give you proper training. But you can’t just jump into things without any kind of practise even _using_ your powers, Andi.” 

“If I don’t help you now, there might not _be_ an Avengers team to help train me,” Andi retorted, looking up at Natasha before glancing to Steve and Clint who remained silent. “Let me help.” 

Clint was shaking his head and looking down, and Natasha was looking to Steve who sighed. “You remind me of me, when I was… well, younger,” he said, looking at Andi. He pulled open a drawer and picked out something from inside it. An earpiece. He handed it to Andi. “Well, if you’re coming along, you’re going to need this to stay in contact with us all. But you stay in this jet with Clint till we call for you. This is just a recon mission. We’re not expecting an attack but we have to be prepared for it anyway.”

Andi took the earpiece from him and put it in before nodding. Steve gave her one last look before going to join Clint at the controls. Andi glanced to Natasha, who was smiling a little, but she didn’t say anything, instead gesturing for Andi to take a seat while she herself sat down near Clint. 


	17. trouble on the highway

Andi wasn’t sure how long they were in the air but soon enough, the jet had arrived at their destination. Steve was the only one who got off though, on the roof of the building where the cradle was supposedly being kept. 

“Two minutes,” Andi could hear Steve saying through the earpiece. She could see him as he walked into the building, from where she stood beside Clint at the controls. “Stay close.” 

From there, there was nothing anyone else could do but wait, and so they did, till soon enough, they heard Steve’s voice through the earpiece again. He’d found Doctor Cho. 

“He’s uploading himself into the body,” Doctor Cho said amid small pants. Andi didn’t know what it looked like down there, but she heard the fizzle of electricity, and the tiredness in Cho’s voice, so she assumed that something had happened down there. Something bad. 

“Where is he?” Steve asked. 

There was silence through the earpiece, and Andi assumed that meant that Doctor Cho didn’t know. 

“The real power is inside the Cradle,” Cho said after a few moments of silence. “The gem from the scepter. Its power is uncontainable. You can’t just blow it up,” she said softly. So that was what Ultron needed the scepter for. Aside from a body made of vibranium… he’d have the power of that stone. The stone that helped enhance Andi’s powers, and gave Wanda and Pietro their powers. “You need to get the cradle to Stark.”

“Did you guys copy that?” Steve spoke into the earpiece, and Andi nodded before realising that he couldn’t see her. She didn’t get to say anything anyway because Clint answered. “We did,” he was nodding too, but his gaze was on the streets below. His eyes wandered before fixing onto something and Andi leaned over to get a better look. It was a truck, and it had the laboratory logo on it.

“There,” Clint murmured and then spoke louder. “There’s a truck from the lab. It’s right above you, Cap. On the loop by the bridge.” From beside Clint, one of the monitors began to make a noise and Andi stood back to watch as it scanned the contents of the truck, giving an x-ray image. “There are three of those robots in there with the cradle. I could take out the driver.” 

“Negative,” Steve’s voice came back almost immediately. “If that truck crashes, the gem could level the city. We need to draw out Ultron. I’m near the bridge. I can get onto the truck. Stay alert for back up.” 

And from there, Andi heard only the sound of traffic as Steve prepared to do whatever he had in mind. 

Andi looked back at the monitor that had an image of the scanned truck. Three robots but no humans. 

“How come Wanda and Pietro aren’t on the truck?” Andi wondered aloud, staring at the image. 

Clint shrugged, keeping his gaze on the streets below, and likely on Steve. “Maybe they knew we were coming and have some other tricks up their sleeves,” he suggested. “I wouldn’t be surprised.” 

Andi bit down on her lip. He might be right but something told Andi that there was something else going on. She just didn’t know what. 

The sound of metal hitting metal alerted Andi and she looked out through the windshield to look down. Steve was hanging on the side of one of the truck doors, flailing about as the truck continued to move. Shortly after she caught a glance of that, she watched as the door suddenly flew off from the top hinges, throwing Steve into the air before he landed on the door that was now scraping across the road, its bottom hinges still attached to the back of the truck. 

“Captain?” Andi spoke instinctively, wanting to help. 

“I’m fine,” he groaned through the earpiece. Andi was far up but she could see him struggling to hold on. “Ultron’s definitely unhappy,” he added. “I’m going to try and keep him that way.” 

“You’re not a match for him, Cap,” Clint warned. 

Steve sighed. “Thanks, Barton.” 

Shortly after that, Steve was thrown off of the truck completely. Clint changed course of the jet to follow his movements, so they could send in back up when necessary. Andi only heard a lot of metal hitting metal, which she assumed was Steve’s shield and Ultron’s metal body. All of that metal made her feel like she could be of more assistance, but how Steve was managing to do all that on a moving truck, she had no clue. Andi was sure she would have fallen off and been run over by now. 

She was starting to understand why nobody wanted her to come along for things like this. 

“We’ve got to do something to help, right?” She said, nonetheless, glancing between Clint and Natasha. The redhead was already standing at the table like structure that sat in the middle of the jet. 

“Way ahead of you, kid,” she said, pressing a button that caused the table to move. It opened up to reveal a motorcycle — with the biggest wheels Andi had ever seen on a motorcycle. Then again, she’d barely even been exposed to a _bicycle_. 

Natasha mounted the bike and readied herself before glancing to Clint. Andi followed her gaze.

“We’ve got a window,” Clint said, lifting his hand to grasp a small lever. “Four, three, two… Give him hell.” At that, he pulled the lever down, and below Natasha, a set of doors opened up. The bike dropped just as Clint moved the jet closer to the road, and before she knew it, Andi was watching Natasha speed down the freeway on the bike, picking up Steve’s fallen shield as she went.

“I’m always picking up after you boys,” she muttered, causing Andi to smile a little. 

“They’re heading under the overpass. I’ve got no shot,” Clint informed through the earpiece while Andi paced whatever area was available inside the jet. The doors Nat had gone through had closed now, and the table had not come back up. Probably to leave room for the cradle, if all went well.

“Which way?” Natasha asked. 

“Take a right,” Clint informed after a few seconds, to wait for her to reach that turning in the road. Andi heard metal on metal again soon enough, which meant that Steve got his shield back. She felt better knowing that the two of them were backing each other up, instead of fighting alone. 

But she also couldn’t see anything because, like Clint said, the truck was under the overpass. Whatever was going on was blocked to their eyes. 

Andi heard a few shots. Not gunshots, but whatever it was that Ultron’s robots shot out. Nobody seemed affected by it though, because Andi could hear Natasha screaming at civilians to get out of the way while Steve continued to grapple with Ultron on top of the truck. 

A sudden crash made Andi more alert. She couldn’t see anything still, but she could hear it, and the sound of Steve grunting as he was flung from the truck. It was a miracle he wasn’t crushed by some other car because Andi had a feeling that a few happened to get flipped over. She looked to Clint with some alarm but he remained focused on the overpass, as though he would see the truck any minute. 

Despite not looking at her, he seemed to sense her uneasiness. “Don’t worry, kid,” he said softly, turning the jet slightly in the air. “They know what they’re doing.” 

“Clint,” Natasha’s voice came through the earpiece yet again. “Can you draw out the guards?”

Clint looked around through his windshield. “Let’s find out.” The jet moved through the sky, coming to the edge of the road, where the overpass turned, but the road beneath it did not. Andi knew the truck would now be exposed, and Clint was just waiting. 

Merely seconds later, they saw it. Steve and Ultron were still on the roof, and Clint waited for a good shot before he fired at Ultron with the jet’s built in weapons. The bullets only seemed to annoy Ultron, unfortunately. 

The two remaining robots from inside the truck flew out, and now aimed for their jet. “They’re coming for _us_ ,” Andi pointed out, which was pretty obvious. 

“Hold on tight,” Clint muttered, giving Andi barely a second to grab onto the nearest chair as the jet went straight up into the air, and against gravity completely. There was a bit of jerky movement, when the robots latched onto the hood of the jet, trying to do some damage. Clint managed to shake them off by doing a spin in the air, which, admittedly, made Andi feel a little sick.

Her fingers remained clenched around the chair, but she allowed one hand to travel to her stomach, as though that would make her feel better. Looking to Clint, she noticed that he seemed completely unfazed by doing a few fast twirls in the air. She didn’t want to ask how many times he had done that. 

Andi braced herself for more of the same, but the robots left them alone after that. Confused, Andi glanced through the windshield to see that they were flying back to the ground. To the truck.

“They’re coming back to you,” Clint informed both Natasha and Steve. “So whatever you’re gonna do, do it now.”

From what Andi could hear, Steve was still battling Ultron, only they didn’t seem to be on top of the truck anymore.

Natasha’s voice soon came up again. “I’m going into the truck,” she said. “Cap, can you keep him occupied?” 

Moments later, a tired voice replied with a grunt. “What do you think I’ve been doing?” 

There was a little less of the traffic noise now, leading Andi to believe that Natasha had gotten inside the truck.

“She’s down there and we’re up here. How is she going to get the cradle to us?” Andi asked Clint, staring down at the road where she could vaguely see what was going on. 

“I guess we’ll have to wait and find out,” Clint muttered, also staring intently at the truck. The robots had now reached the truck too, but instead of going inside, they went underneath. Andi was confused, till moments later, the truck seemed to move… up? It was flying. The robots were moving it off the road and into the air.

That was actually better. They had more of a chance to get the cradle into the jet if the whole thing was in the air. 

Andi’s heart was beating a mile a minute but she remained focused on the truck, prepared to help in any way if she could.

“Be ready,” Natasha said. “I’m sending the package to you.”

Clint sat up straighter and stared at the truck that was now flying through the air. “How do you want me to take it?” 

“Uh… you might wish you hadn’t asked me that.”

Andi didn’t get it but she wasted no time trying to figure it out. In fact, at that moment, something else caught her attention. Wanda’s voice. 

“Please, don’t do this,” Ultron was saying. 

Wanda’s voice was the one to respond. “What choice do we have?” 

Andi was alarmed. Had they changed sides? Did they realise that Ultron was the real enemy? She had so many questions. She wanted to get down to them, and all of her thoughts in that moment almost drowned out Clint;s yelling voice. 

“Andi!” She snapped out of it and looked to him. He was wildly gesturing for her to move aside, and she did so quickly, grabbing onto a railing as the back door of the jet opened up wide. She understood now. The Cradle was going to just come flying in. 

“I lost him,” Steve’s voice came up through the earpiece. “He’s headed your way!” 

Andi was prepared for this. The back door was open, but Ultron was a robot at the end of the day. Just a hunk of metal. Metal that she could shred apart and melt if she wanted to. Andi kept her eyes on the sky but for the time being, she saw nothing except the truck, with Natasha still inside it. 

Merely seconds later, she watched as the cradle began to move. Natasha was clinging onto it, and Andi stood close to the edge of the jet, ready to pull her in or do something, in case anything went wrong.

Fortunately, the cradle slid right into the jet, just barely brushing against Clint’s chair because he pulled up at the last minute, instead of pointing the jet downward like it had been, to catch the cradle. 

Clint grinned triumphantly once the cradle was secure. “All right, Andi move away from those doors, they’re going to close.” 

Andi hadn’t realised she was still standing so close to the edge. After making sure that Natasha was safely inside, she moved to step further into the jet, only she didn’t get to. She felt a cold metal clamp onto her leg before she could take another step, and her eyes widened. 

“Andi!” Natasha yelled, getting off the cradle to come to her aid. Her hand had just reached out, mere inches away from Andi’s own outstretched arm, but it was too late, because Ultron had dragged her away from the plane. And she had no idea where he was taking her. 


	18. science bros

“Cap, do you have eyes on Andi?” Clint asked through the earpiece. She had just flown out of the sky. He should have been more careful, should have insisted that she move further away from the doors so nothing like this would have happened. 

“If you have the package, get it to Stark,” Steve spoke, before a grunt and the sound of metal against metal sounded through the earpiece. 

“But—“ 

“Clint, if we don’t get this package to him now, Ultron will come back and we might not be as lucky the second time,” Steve cut him off. “Go!” 

Clint bit his lip and thought hard for a moment before slamming his fist down on the steering wheel. “Damn it,” he muttered, pulling a lever and sending the jet speeding through the sky with extra thrusters. 

“She’ll be fine, Clint,” Natasha said, and he glanced behind him to see that she was still staring at the doors, which had now closed. “Ultron wouldn’t have just taken her without any reason.” 

Clint didn’t speak, but he sure as hell was hoping that she was alright. For now, all he could do was what he was told, so he continued onward, to the Avengers tower. 

 

* * *

 

Clint was doing his best to try and pry the cradle open or do something to override the process of building a new body. Bruce and Nat stood by, speaking in hushed tones, and Tony just stared at the cradle, thinking. He _told_ her. He told Andi to go to the tower, and now…

“There’s got to be some way we can track her, or something,” Natasha was saying, looking to Tony.

Tony crossed his arms and walked over to the cradle. “Right now all I know is that she’s alive. Ultron had a reason for taking her.” But how he was treating her… Tony had no way of knowing. Nor did he know yet how to find her and try to catch Ultron by surprise. It frustrated him to no end, feeling helpless. He should have been more careful and made _sure_ she got the tower. 

“Meanwhile, this thing is sealed tight,” Clint said. He was frustrated too, Tony could tell, but right now, he wanted only Bruce in this room. The faster they got to work, the sooner they’d have a way to try and get Andi back.

“We’re going to have to access the program and break it down from within,” Bruce said, placing a hand on the cradle, as though he were admiring it.

“Clint, see what you can do, tap into traffic cams, anything. See if you can find out where Ultron took her,” Tony told the man, who nodded almost immediately and headed downstairs where he could access their surveillance system. 

“I’ll help him. A second set of eyes will help, and I’m no use up here.” Natasha headed downstairs too. Tony got the feeling that she felt guilty about Andi being taken, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to make things worse. Besides, with what he had in mind, he was probably going to make it worse anyway. 

Tony and Bruce were left alone and Bruce walked over to the cradle to inspect the monitor at the head of it. “I could work on tissue regeneration if you could fry whatever operational system Doctor Cho implanted.”

“Yeah,” Tony nodded and scratched the back of his head. “About that…”

Bruce looked up and met his gaze. Tony had no intentions of undoing what Ultron did. And Bruce understood it, because his eyes soon went wide and he stepped back with his hands up in defence. “No.” 

Tony sighed and stepped closer. “You have to trust me here.”

Bruce stepped back some more. “I kind of don’t.” 

“Remember Fury said that we had some unknown party protecting the nuclear launch codes? Well I found him,” Tony explained, picking up the glass remote from his back pocket to project the image — or the construction, rather — of Jarvis. 

Bruce stared, stunned, but said nothing. 

“Hello, Doctor Banner,” Jarvis said. 

“Ultron didn’t go after Jarvis because he was angry,” Tony explained. “He attacked him because he was scared of what he can do.” 

Bruce still seemed unconvinced, so Tony continued. “So Jarvis went underground. Scattered. And I found him and I pieced him together again. 

Bruce chuckled, though it was devoid of any humour. “So, you want _me_ to help _you_ put Jarvis, into this thing?” He gestured to the half completed body that, had they not intercepted it, would belong to Ultron right now.

“No! Of course not,” Tony shook his head as though the idea was ridiculous before continuing. “I want to help _you_ put Jarvis into this thing.”

Bruce sighed. 

“We’re out of my field here,” Tony shrugged. “You know bio-organics better than anyone.” 

“And you just assume that Jarvis can beat Ultron?” Bruce asked, staring at him. 

“Jarvis has been beating him from the inside without knowing it,” Tony argued, crossing his arms. “This is our opportunity. We can create Ultron’s perfect self without the homicidal glitches he thinks are his winning personality. We have to do this.” 

“I believe it’s worth a go,” Jarvis chimed in for support.

Bruce put his hands on his head. “I’m in a loop. I’m caught in a time loop. This is _exactly_ where it all went wrong.” 

“I know,” Tony nodded, trying to ease his frustration. And he _did_ know. But he also knew this was their only chance to defeat Ultron before he came up with some other tactic. “I know,” he repeated. “I know what everyone’s going to say. But they’re already saying it,” he said, placing a hand on Bruce’s shoulder. “We’re mad scientists. We’ve got to own it.” 

Bruce looked down at the cradle, lips pursed. Tony could tell he was still a little unconvinced. 

“I don’t know where Andi is right now. And I know — or I’m hoping — that she’s okay. She’s strong. And we _will_ find her,” he told Bruce. “But at the end of the day, Ultron took her. And he’s going to keep taking people. We were lucky to get the cradle, even after he took her. Don’t let that be in vain.” 

Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose and looked up at Tony once he let his hand fall back down to his side. And though he didn’t say anything out loud, the subtle nod he gave was enough for Tony. 


	19. the world needs to start over

Andi’s head hurt. The last thing she remembered was Natasha getting the cradle into the jet and then… then Ultron had grabbed her. She’d flown out of the plane, hit her head on one of the doors on the way out and she passed out. Now… where was she now? 

Her eyes fluttered open, and she tried to ignore the dull throbbing that seemed persistent on the right side of her head.

“I wasn’t sure you’d wake up,” Ultron’s voice came, and Andi turned her head to the front to see him standing there, hunched over another robot he was tinkering with. “I hoped you would. I wanted to show you something.” 

Slowly bringing herself to sit up, Andi looked around the dimly lit area. She’d been laying on the rock floor, and it was a sensation that was all too familiar. When she looked around, she realised why, even if lots of things had changed. These were the cells of Strucker’s facility. She was back where she first started out. Only now, a lot more technology filled the place. Ultron’s technology. 

“It’s remarkable, you know,” Ultron was saying, still not looking at her. “I’ve seen the way you effortlessly tear apart metal with a simple hand gesture. Yet, despite that destruction, you have the capability to create life.” He finally looked to her and gestured to the floor around her. Glancing down, she realised that grass had sprouted around her, vines curling up from having broken through the rock hard floor, simple to curl around her legs, as if intending to cover her body in a cocoon of sorts. 

“Persephone, correct?” Ultron asked, standing straight and staring at her. “That was the codename that Strucker gave you. Because of what you were capable of. You hear and see the dead. You help nature survive, but not only that, you control all aspects of Earth. Including metal.”

Andi didn’t say anything in response. She was just flashing back to all the times she’d been told similar things by Strucker. How he had explained what new ability she gained each time he tested her. Slowly she became enhanced, but the voices became worse. She realised, however, that since the Avengers stepped into her life, she hadn’t experienced the voices. She’d been too focused on other things.

“Yes,” Ultron nodded. “You’ll be useful for me.” 

Andi sat up a little more, inching backward whilst staring at Ultron but he just continued to speak. “I think a lot about meteors. The purity in them,” he explained, continuing to work on the robot. “Boom! The end. That’s how they work, isn’t it? The world made clean for the new man to rebuild.” 

Ultron stopped working on the robot to begin walking toward Andi. She craned her neck back to see him, but continued to inch backward slowly, still crawling on the ground. 

“I was meant to be new,” Ultron continued. “I was meant to be beautiful. The world would have looked to the sky and seen hope, seen mercy. Instead, they’ll look up in horror because of your precious Avengers.” 

Andi was now backed up against a wall, and to the side, there was another opening. She couldn’t see into it but maybe it was a hallway, maybe she could try to run, do _something_. 

“You and your Avengers, you’ve wounded me,” Ultron said, now standing over her. “But, like the man said. What doesn’t kill me,” at that point, whatever Ultron had been about to say was cut short, because suddenly, a metal fist was protruding from the middle of his body. Andi’s eyes widened, and she stumbled back further, taking her chance to get into what she thought was a hallway, only to realise it was a cell. She turned around, to see that Ultron’s body had fallen, but in his place, stood a bigger metal body. “Just makes me stronger,” he finished his sentence, standing in the doorway of his cell and pulling the bars so that they shut, trapping Andi inside.

“This world will need to start over,” he said, looking at her through the cell. “And when it does, you’ll be useful for growth. At least till I don’t need you anymore,” he explained. “And maybe having you here will also knock some sense back into the twins so they come back. I guess we’ll just have to see.” 

And with that, Ultron flew off. Andi didn’t know where to. She was already trying to think of ways to escape, but these were the cells designed to keep her in. Control over metal wasn’t going to help her here. 

 

 

* * *

 

Bruce was busy plugging various things into the cradle, while Tony did his best to help him out but there was little he could do. This was Bruce’s area of expertise. The more time he had to himself though, the more time he would spend getting more angry at Ultron, and he knew that would just lead to another impulsive decision. And since neither Clint nor Natasha had got a hit on Andi’s location yet, this was all he could do. 

“Okay, we have three minutes to upload that schematic,” Bruce said, checking that everything was in place. Tony was at the computer, about to say something, when the sound of heavy footsteps filled the area, and he was forced to look up.

“I’m going to say this once,” Steve said, standing a few feet away from the cradle. Flanking him were the Maximoff twins. 

Tony stared at Steve. “How about ‘nonce’?” 

“Shut it down,” Steve insisted, his voice rising.

“Tony crossed his arms. “Nope, not gonna happen.”

“You don’t know what you’re doing.” 

Bruce looked up from the cradle and glanced at Steve. “And you do?” He asked, nodding to Wanda briefly. “She’s not in your head?”

Wanda, now having been mentioned, looked to Bruce. “I know you’re angry—“

Bruce smiled but it wasn’t a pleasant smile. “Oh, we’re _way_ past that. I could choke the life out of you and never change a shade.” 

Wanda just stared at him, while Tony continued working, because he wasn’t going to allow this to stop. 

“Banner,” Steve continued, stepping toward him. “After everything that’s happened—“

“It’s nothing compared to what’s coming,” Tony called out from where he stood at one of the monitors.

“You don’t know what’s in there,” Wanda insisted. 

And at this point, everyone was arguing simultaneously, till a sudden blur made everyone stop, and stare. All at once, the pipes came off, wires were detached, and Pietro stood beside Banner, dropping a pipe and looking to all of them. “No, no, go on. You were saying?” 

Tony could have strangled the kid in that minute.

But before he could have done anything, the glass beneath Pietro’s feet suddenly shattered, along with the sound of a gun going off. Pietro fell to the floor below, and Clint stood over him with a smirk. “What, you didn’t see that coming?” 

Sounds started to come from the systems, and Tony, now alert, looked to them before fiddling again. “I’m rerouting the upload,” he told Bruce.

Steve chose that moment to toss his shield and try to disrupt the flow of things, but Tony held his hand out and the hand of his Iron Man suit came flying to him in seconds, wrapping around his arm and allowing him to fire a blast that sent Steve flying back. Within seconds, the rest of his suit followed. 

Wanda was beginning to intervene before Bruce managed to catch hold of her. “Go ahead,” he told her. “Piss me off.” 

Clint had climbed up to their floor, gun out, but Steve was already jumping back into action. Instinctively, Tony fired another blast that sent them both crashing through glass walls on either side of the cradle. 

Before Tony had the chance to get up, the rumble of thunder told him that someone else had joined them. 

He sat up slowly and saw Thor had entered the room, fully in gear. Where the hell had he been this whole time? The man jumped up onto the cradle and Tony’s only thought was that he was going to destroy it. “Thor—“ 

He didn’t get to say anything because Thor had already lifted his hammer. Lightning surrounded him, covering the hammer almost completely, till Thor brought the hammer down onto the cradle. The sound of crackling electricity filled the air and Tony could only stare as the lightning then snaked around the cradle. 

Thor wasn’t destroying it. He was continuing the process. 

Next to Tony, one of the monitors began to beep. He read it and saw that the progress inside the cradle was increasing at an alarming rate, taking a mere few seconds to reach one hundred percent. 

Thor then pulled back. The crackling of electricity had faded, and a deafening silence filled the room for a few moments. 

That is, until the cradle burst open, sending Thor flying off. 

Tony lifted an arm to shield himself from the blast and he looked forward again when the silence continued. Smoke was all Tony could see for a while, till from it, rose a figure. He didn’t look like a normal human. He was… red. His skin looked metallic. He was looking around, as if unable to believe that he’d been born. 

And in the centre of his forehead, sat the yellow stone from the scepter.


	20. the vision

Tony was… well, there were a lot of emotions running through him that he couldn’t really decide what exactly he felt at that moment. Suddenly though, what they’d created had suddenly leaped forward into the air, leaving everyone on guard. 

He flew fast, stopping right in front of the window, and he seemed to be looking out at the city. Slowly, Tony, along with the others, exited the lab and walked into the main room that was still trashed from the fight against Ultron two nights ago. They were all sure to keep their distance but right now, Tony was more curious than cautious. 

Thor gently set his hammer down on a nearby table, his eyes on the mysterious man the entire time. He certainly _looked_ like a man, except without any hair, and his skin was dark red. He turned away from the window and began to descend, almost gracefully landing in the middle of the room, and as he did so, his body shifted — or rather his skin did, and he appeared to be wearing a bluish-grey body suit. Only his hands and his face remained red. From his shoulders, a golden cape grew, stretching to fall to his ankles. 

“Thank you,” he said, looking to Thor. Tony was amazed by the fact that he sounded exactly like someone he knew. 

“Thor,” Steve spoke, causing Tony to look between him and their creation. “You helped create this?” 

“I’ve had a vision,” Thor said, nodding. “A whirlpool that sucks in all hope of life, and at its centre, is that.” He pointed to the yellow stone that rested in the forehead of their creation. “It’s the Mind Stone. It’s one of the six Infinity Stones. The greatest power in the universe, unparalleled in its destructive capabilities.”

“But then why would you—“

Thor cut Steve off. “Because Stark is right.”

“Oh, then it’s definitely the end of times,” Bruce murmured.

“The Avengers cannot defeat Ultron,” Thor explained. “Not alone.”

Steve looked at Thor for a moment. “Why does your Vision sound like Jarvis?” Tony couldn’t help but think that Vision seemed like a pretty perfect name for the guy.

“We reconfigured Jarvis’ matrix to create something new,” Tony explained, keeping his eyes on Vision as he walked toward him. 

“I looked into your mind and I saw destruction,” Wanda said, stepping forward as she looked at Vision. 

“Check again,” Vision advised.

Clint chuckled humourlessly. “Yeah, her seal of approval means jack to me.” 

“Look, their powers, Andi’s powers, the horrors in our heads, Ultron himself, they all came from the mind stone. And they’re nothing compared to what it can unleash,” Thor explained. 

“But are you on our side?” Steve asked, needing to get things straight. Tony looked to Vision expectantly because that was something he needed answered as well… or he made a huge mistake. 

“I’m on the side of life,” Vision replied. “Ultron isn’t. He will end it all.” 

“What’s he waiting for?” Natasha asked, crossing her arms. 

Vision looked over all of them. “You. All of you.”

“Where is he?” Tony asked, knowing that where he was, Andi was too. 

Before Vision could answer, Pietro did. “Sokovia.” All eyes moved to him, and Tony stepped closer. He was looking at the ground, as if thinking, and then shared a glance with his sister before looking up and meeting Tony’s gaze. “He’s using Strucker’s old facility. And it’s probably where he’s keeping Andi too.” 

“We have to act now,” Vision said, glancing at all of them. Tony was deep in thought about how they were going to pull this off. Right now, he just wanted to get Andi out, and to safety, before things got even worse in Sokovia. “Not one of us can do this without the others.” Vision continued, reaching across Thor to pick up Thor’s hammer. He held it out to the God of thunder, waiting for him to take it, while everyone else simply stared, very obviously surprised that he’d been able to wield it when nobody but Thor had ever done so before.

Thor bit down on his lower lip and accepted the hammer, turning it over in his hands as Vision headed into the next room. People were still staring at Thor and he cleared his throat a little before offering a somewhat awkward smile. “Right,” he said, turning to avoid meeting anyone’s gaze. “Well done,” he said, clapping Tony’s shoulder and heading into the next room as well. 

Everyone else still stood around just comprehending what they’d seen, but finally, Steve spoke. “Alright. Suit up.” 

 

* * *

 

Tony rifled through a few blue chips before finding one marked FRIDAY. He picked that and plugged it into his system, and immediately, a female voice came up. “Good evening, boss.” 

Now that Jarvis was… well, Vision, Tony needed a new voice in his head. And everywhere else. This was the next best thing. 

He had everything he needed, and he left his lab to meet Bruce and Steve, who were already good to go. Bruce had no intentions of hulking out, but he’d help with the evacuation of the city. The last thing they needed was for civilians to get hurt because of Ultron and his robot army. 

“If even one tin soldier is left standing, we’ve lost,” Tony said to Steve and Bruce. “There’s going to be blood on the floor.” This was a big battle. And they’d been losing so far. With Vision, they had a better chance, but it was still high stakes. 

“I got no plans tomorrow night,” Steve said with a small, crooked smile. 

Tony nodded. “I get first crack at the big guy,” he said. “Iron Man’s the one he’s waiting for.” 

From behind, Vision breezed past them. “That’s true. He hates you the most.”

Tony bit his lip and looked back to see that Vision had already gone, so he decided to keep his thoughts to himself. 

It only took a few more minutes, and they were all in the quinjet, heading toward Sokovia. The plan was simple. Get on the ground, start evacuating people, and once Tony got Andi out of her cell, he was going to keep Ultron busy. Piece of cake. 

He just hoped it would work. 


	21. you are my meteor

Andi had no idea how long she’d been in that cell but it felt like much longer than it actually was, because here, alone, in the cells she had been placed in for most of her life, the voices came back to haunt her. 

Maybe it also had to do with her worrying about everything. Ultron, Wanda and Pietro, the Avengers. So much had happened in a span of two days. She thought she had got freedom, but that hadn’t been the case. Well, not entirely. Things had started to look up for her, and then went horrible again because of Ultron being born. With all of that, and being back in the place where she had been tortured for years, of course her mind wasn’t in the right place. 

Andi had huddled herself in a corner, eyes shut tight to prevent herself from seeing the faces that matched those voices. All she could hear were cries and screams of the ones that had been tortured here before her or along with her. Those that hadn’t been lucky enough to survive the experiments, or who took their lives because they didn’t want to deal with all of it anymore. Andi couldn’t bring herself to witness all of those things, but there was nothing she could do to stop herself from hearing it. Her hands covered her ears but it barely helped. 

It was a sound of a familiar voice, among the wails of the dead, that got her to open her eyes. Crouching in front of her, in his suit, was Tony. The face part of his suit had been unmasked, allowing her to see his face properly. His hand was outstretched, touching her arm gently, as if to wake her from the nightmare she’d been stuck in for the past few hours. Just like that, the voices disappeared. 

Her hands slowly fell from her ears, and she took a moment to look around. All around her, vines had grown, surrounding her legs and forming a kind of patch around her, as if to offer some comfort from the stone cold floor that was still tainted by the blood of various victims. Her gaze travelled higher, and she saw that the metal bars of the cell had been blasted off, with some corners of the metal still smoking. 

“Andi,” Tony spoke again, and she realised he had said something before she had looked up at him. “Are you okay?” 

Slowly, Andi nodded. Then she remembered Ultron, all the things he had told her, and she didn’t hesitate to let it all out. “He was talking about a start over,” Andi explained, the words rushing out of her mouth. “Ultron, he wants to start over. Something about destroying the entire planet, starting new. That—That’s why he wants me. To create new life in a world that will be rid of humans.”

Tony was nodding, but she had no idea if he was listening, because what he said next wasn’t really related. “Yeah, come on, you need to get out of here.”

He was helping her to her feet, and she walked with him out of the cell. Down below, near the heart of whatever Ultron was working on, Thor was poking around, probably trying to get to the bottom of what it was he was actually doing. 

Before she could say anything, Tony’s mask went back on and he lifted Andi up, flying through a hole in the ceiling, before she was exposed to daylight again. Well, daylight that would soon fade. 

“This is the big showdown and it would be better if you weren’t here for it. You’ve helped enough,” Tony told Andi, flying her to the edge of the city. She could see a familiar jet parked in the distance, in the middle of the woods. Tony landed close to it, setting Andi gently down on her feet.

Andi stared at the jet and then turned back to Tony. “Do you really think I’m just going to sit and watch while Ultron hurts thousands of people?” She asked, staring him down. Tony’s mask popped off again, to look at Andi properly, but she cut him off before he could say anything. “You told me when you took me from Strucker’s facility that I had the choice to do what I want. I said I want freedom. And that includes the freedom to make my own choices. I can help. I _want_ to help. I had all these abilities and I could never do anything before because I was scared. _Let me do something now_.” 

Tony looked like he wanted to say something. Like he wanted to say a lot, in fact. Ultimately, he stared at her for a few moments, and then sighed. “I took you from there. That makes you my responsibility. And I don’t think it’s right to let a fourteen-year-old run into battle against an army of dangerous robots.” 

Andi looked at him, a bit of fondness in her expression. “I’m not an ordinary fourteen-year-old.” 

Tony sighed yet again. “No,” he nodded. “You’re not.” 

Andi heard Steve’s voice in Tony’s helmet. “Ultron’s at the heart of the city. He’s all yours.”

Time was running out. Tony couldn’t fight this any longer. “Take this,” he said, putting his helmet back on but holding a hand out to give Andi an earpiece. “Our main task is getting civilians to safety. Evacuation. _Please_ do _only_ that,” Tony instructed as she took the earpiece and fitted it.

“Got it,” she nodded.

Tony began to lift off of the ground, ready to fly off. He picked Andi up at the last minute, dropping her off closer to where Steve was, helping people out of their cars on a bridge and toward the edge of the city. As he hovered in the air after letting Andi down on the road, he spoke again. “Be careful, kid.” 

And with that, he was gone. 

Andi turned to meet Steve’s gaze as he jogged over to her. People all around were running in the same direction — to get out of the city. “You alright?” He asked her, coming to a stop in front of her.

She nodded. Through the earpiece, she could vaguely hear Tony and Ultron, in conversation. “Let’s get these people out of here,” she murmured, and Steve nodded. 

Just before either of them could move though, the ground at their feet burst open, and metal hands clawed their way out. As Andi looked around, she saw that it was happening everywhere. Robots were emerging from the ground, from nearby rivers, and starting to attack. Which just made this whole thing a lot harder. 

Steve and Andi got to work. There were still some people on the bridge, which Steve tended to, while Andi turned in the other direction and ushered people to continue moving, occasionally reaching her hands out to use her powers and pull apart any robot that tried to harm the innocents. Except for back in the Avenger’s tower, this would mark the first official time she was using her powers willingly, and for good. 

It was already very clear that they were grossly outnumbered, but Andi kept at it. Metal, earth, those were her strong suits. She tore through any robot that came her way, wisps of purple energy escaping her fingers and doing the work for her, like an energy force bound to her. It was not unlike Wanda’s abilities, but whereas Wanda used her energy for most things, Andi’s could only be used on Earthen elements — which was still quite a large chunk of things. 

A few robots had overpowered Steve on the bridge. For the most part, people were off, but the robots didn’t seem to be allowing Steve to get to safety or to help other people. He was busy attacking one of the robots, when one came at him from behind. 

Knowing it would be too late if she called out to him, Andi held a hand out in that direction, forcing Steve’s shield out of his hand. The things flew through the air, destroying the robot behind him, as well as ten other robots all heading for him, before returning to his hand like a boomerang. He looked back in surprise, meeting her gaze, and nodded his thanks before continuing to help the civilians, which was what Andi continued to do as well. 

Overhead, Andi spotted Tony, flying around and helping, shooting robots out of the sky, and she wondered who was keeping Ultron busy right now, but she was too focused on other things to pay that attention to anything else. 

Andi had moved along down the road as more people began to run. She was trying to take out as many of the robots as she could, but it was hard, and she was being overwhelmed. She had stepped into a street, trapping one underneath a pile of rubble, but seven more took its place, almost lined up in front of her. 

Andi lifted her hands, intending to take them apart one by one, but before she could, an invisible force zipped past, and before she knew it, the robots were just pieces of shredded metal now. 

Standing a few feet away was Pietro, and he was looking at her. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he said, walking over to her. 

“Glad?” Andi echoed, shuffling nervously from foot to foot.“You’re not mad?” Him and Wanda had been her only friends and she had left them. Of course, she had done so because she didn’t believe in their motives to go after Tony, but she had still left them nonetheless. 

“Of course not,” Pietro shook his head. “You’re like a sister to us. All Wanda and I ever wanted was to keep you safe, and get you away from Strucker. It didn’t happen the way we hoped but you’re safer. We… we had our thoughts and morals clouded by revenge. That wasn’t right. Ultron is the only enemy here.” 

And Andi was glad to hear that. She offered him a small smile but before she could say anything else, the ground began to shake again. 

Part of Andi though that more robots were coming, but that wasn’t the case. This was more like a massive earthquake. Pietro put a hand on his shoulder, yanking her back, as the ground at her feet cracked, beginning to split. Part of her wondered if she was somehow doing this without realising, but the tremors stretched on for miles, throughout the city, and the last time she’d done this was under immense amounts of pain at the hands of Strucker, when she’d been twelve. 

Buildings were falling, glass shattering, and Pietro helped speed her out of the way just as a building was about to collapse on them. He stopped at the entrance of the bridge, where Steve now stood, and they watched as it began to fall apart, cars tipping off the edge. The city was rising into the sky. 

All of Ultron’s robots stopped attacking, to stand and hover in the air, and Ultron’s voice came out of all of them, simultaneously, meaning his voice was heard throughout the rising city of Sokovia. 

“Do you see the beauty of it? The inevitability. You rise, only to fall. You, Avengers, you are my meteor. My swift and terrible sword. And the Earth will crack with the weight of your failure. When the dust settles, the only thing living in this world will be metal.” 


	22. let's end this son of a bitch

Though the entire city was rising into the sky, the fighting raged on because robots weren’t going to give them the luxury of standing around to take their time and be surprised. 

Through the earpiece, Andi could hear Tony’s voice. “The rest of the vibranium that Ultron took is in the entire rock of the city,” he was explaining to the team. “There’s a magnetic field keeping the rock together. If that thing drops now, it’ll kill thousands of people within a certain mild radius. If it gets high enough…” 

“Then that’s global extinction,” Steve muttered and Andi glanced to her right to see him walking up beside her and staring at the sky as more of Ultron’s robots flew around, causing chaos. “Alright,” Steve continued. “Stark, you worry about bringing the city back down safely. Everyone else… we have one job. Tear these things apart. If you get hurt, hurt them back. If you get killed… walk it off.” 

And with that, Steve sprung into action as a set of new robots flew toward them. Thor had joined them now, helping Steve take out a row of robots before Ultron’s primary body came and plucked Thor up, taking him further into the city. 

“We’re all clear here,” Clint’s voice came in through the earpiece. 

“Not clear here,” Steve said, grunting as he kicked off one robot. Andi moved to his side and stuck out a hand, crumpling the metal body and using it to fling it through the body of a few other robots that were coming their way. “Definitely not clear here.” 

Pietro had come to Andi’s side again. “I’ll go get them,” he said, and Andi nodded before watching him speed off. 

For the time being, Andi didn’t see anymore robots, so she began to help Steve lead people into secure locations, where they wouldn’t be crushed by more debris. 

“The next wave is going to hit any minute,” Steve muttered. “What do you have, Stark?” 

“Nothing great,” Andi heard his voice come in through her ear as she moved away from a building and to the edge of the floating city. They were in the clouds now. “Maybe a way to blow up the city,” Tony continued.

Vaporising the entire city? What about all the people on it? 

Steve joined Andi’s side, and a few moments later, Natasha had come as well. “I asked for a solution,” Steve said.“Not an escape plan.” 

“Impact radius is getting bigger with each second that passes. We’re going to have to make a choice,” Tony informed him. 

Natasha stood by Steve and looked at him. “Cap… it’s everyone up here versus everyone down there. There’s no math there. This seems like the only way to do it.” 

Which meant all the people on this city would die. For the sake of the rest of humanity.

“I’m not leaving this rock with one civilian on it,” Steve insisted, staring ahead at the clouds. 

“I didn’t say we should leave.” That got both Andi and Steve to look at Natasha. “There are worse ways to go. Where else am I going to get a view like this?” 

And Andi really considered it. There were plenty of moments when she thought she would die at the hands of HYDRA. But here, this way? _Literally_ saving the world? That was a good way to go. 

“Well I’m glad you like the view Romanoff,” another voice came into the earpiece now, surprising Andi because she knew he wasn’t anywhere on the city. “It’s about to get better.” 

And right on cue, in front of them, rising from the clouds, was a huge airship. Was it an airship? Andi had no idea what to call it, but it was almost as wide as this city rising into the air. And it was all led by Nick Fury. 

“Fury you son of a bitch,” Steve said with a small smile. 

“You kiss your mother with that mouth?” Fury asked, and Andi could almost picture him smiling as he said it. This was good. This was a way for the civilians to get to safety but they had to act fast.

From the giant airship, smaller ones flew to the edges of the city, ready to carry passengers. 

And so, like the rest of them, Andi set out to help. She ushered people out of hiding and sent them in the direction of the carries, and each time one was filled up, it flew to the main ship and came back down empty, to carry more people.

Andi rushed around, making sure no people were left in nearby houses or trapped under debris. It really looked like they were close to getting almost everyone off and winning this thing when Thor’s voice came into the earpiece. “The robots are aiming for the core. If they get to it, this whole city is going to go plunging down.” 

_Shit_. Andi was more alert now. Tony had alerted Rhodey — whom Andi was surprised to see — to help the rest of the civilians while he called the rest of the Avengers to the site of the core. When she got there, Thor was already standing by. There was a man she didn’t recognise — if he _was_ a man, because he had red skin and a cape — and along with those two, Clint, Wanda and Pietro were also there.

“Are you alright?” Wanda asked upon seeing her, walking over to her immediately. Pietro did the same, and Andi nodded. “Yeah, I’m good.” 

Wanda nodded. She looked like she was about to say something, but the arrival of a few of Ultron’s robots interrupted them. 

By then, most of the others had joined them at the core. Wanda used her powers to toss one aside and Pietro sped off to prevent one from getting Thor in the back. Andi was focused on the one in front of her so she didn’t see the one behind her till it was too late. She had turned, lifting her hands to strike, but before either of them could do anything, the robot was smashed to the ground, under the feet of Iron Man. “Doing okay, kid?” 

Andi grinned and nodded. “Let’s end this son of a bitch.” 

Tony tilted his head. “Steve, you’re a bad influence on the kid.” 

Before anyone could say anything else, they were all alerted by the presence of Ultron — and the remainder of his robot army which was still quite a lot. How many did he even have? 

“This is exactly what I wanted,” Ultron said with a smile — if robots could even smile. He sure had a way of doing something similar to a very sinister one. “All of you against all of me. How can you possibly hope to stop me?” 

Andi stood at the ready and Tony looked around at all the assembled Avangers, now guarding the core before turning back to Ultron. “Like the old man said,” he explained, nodding to Steve briefly. “Together.” 


	23. cracking the core

The robots came rushing forward, climbing over the old abandoned church that they were at the heart of, and flying right through open archways to get to them. There were so many of them, but the Avengers were prepared to fight. And so was Andi. 

She concentrated, focused on what she wanted to happen, and then tried to make that happen. Like Wanda, Andi had a few different abilities, but when combined, they could cause quite a bit of damage. One moment, she was using her wisps of purple energy to tear apart a row of robots that came her way, and the next, she bent down to press her hands to the ground, and vines shot out, thick ones, to wrap around the robots and twist till they eventually broke.

There was more she could do with the ground. Things she had been forced to do back when she was with HYDRA. That was the only way she knew that it was possible in the first place, but she had never tried it willingly. If she did that now, whatever robot that was on the ground could be swallowed up in a second. 

Before she got the chance to try, she was alerted by the sound of a laser. Andi turned toward the source of the sound, to see Thor, Tony and this so called Vision, aiming toward Ultron’s primary body, shooting him down, burning away most of the metal that made up his body. And once they were done, and Ultron tried to get a word in, Hulk raced over and sent him flying out of the city with a single punch. 

There were very few of Ultron’s robots remaining now, and what was left flew, intending to leave the island. 

“We can’t let them leave. Not even one,” Tony said.

Andi did her best, running forward, to pull them out of the sky by acting like a human magnet. She had to turn them into metal debris before they hit her though, or she would have been thrown back. But even metal debris wasn’t such a great idea, because it came flying toward her. She dodged what she could but still got a few nasty cuts along her cheek and her arms. 

She’d endured that to take down just two robots. There were still at least ten more getting off the island. 

“I got it,” Rhodey’s voice came into the speaker and Andi could see him in a bulky, grey iron suit, shooting down whatever flew off, while Vision managed to get the rest. 

And that was it. The robots were all gone. 

“We gotta move out,” Steve said, and Andi turned around to face him. “Even I can tell the air is getting thin.” 

Andi hadn’t even noticed, but she continued listening. 

“You guys all get to the boats. I’ll sweep the place to make sure there aren’t any of Ultron’s robots left,” Steve said. 

“What about the core?” Clint asked, nodding to the thing they had been protecting till now.

“I’ll protect it.” Wanda spoke, standing next to the core. Andi’s eyes shot toward her and she met her gaze right before Wanda spoke again, almost as if to reassure her. “It’s my job.” 

Andi was reluctant to let her stay till everyone got off, but Pietro came to stand beside her. “I’ll come get her before anything bad can happen,” he told Andi for further reassurance, and so she nodded. 

Everyone seemed pleased with the plan. Steve took off, and it seemed that Hulk and Thor had gone as well. Clint looked to Natasha. “Come on. Banner needs a lullaby,” he said, and the two of them headed off as well.

Tony nodded, getting ready to fly off. “I’ve got to get under this thing and work on the metal core. Come on, kid, I’ll drop you off at the edge.” He held out his hand and Andi took it. Before she knew it, she was soaring through the air. 

Before he could drop her off though, Andi spoke. “Tony, wait,” she looked up. “You… you’re going to try and break the metal core, right?”

Tony looked at her briefly and nodded. “Yeah. If there’s enough power surging through it, it’ll break apart, activate the vibranium, and the entire city will implode.” 

“How are you going to get that much power?” She asked, because clearly that was _a lot_ of vibranium if it was enough to cause global extinction. 

“Well my hope is that Thor and I, together, can generate enough,” he said, nearing the edge of the city. 

“But if it explodes, and you’re near it when that happens, then—“

“Yeah, we might not walk away from it. But that’s not my concern right now,” he said.

“How do you even know if that’ll be enough power? What if it doesn’t work?” 

Tony had reached the edge of the city now and he dropped Andi off before standing on the ground as well, in front of her. “It has to work.” 

Andi frowned. “That’s not a guarantee,” she argued. “I know you’re going to say no, but I—“ 

“No.” 

Andi continued, regardless. “I can crack the metal core. Combined with whatever energy you push through it, I can crack it. I know I can.” 

Tony was in his suit so there was no way for her to read his expression, but she could almost picture his face, conflicted. He knew she was right. He knew there was a chance. But he also didn’t want to have to make that call.

“This is what the Avengers do, right? Let me do it. Otherwise you’re risking a whole lot more than just three lives.” And she included herself, among Thor and Tony. She accepted that she may not walk away, but if it meant preventing global extinction, then it was worth it. 

“You better be right about this, kid,” Tony muttered, picking Andi up again and flying off the city. They went down below, to the center of the core. Andi could see the glowing vibranium, among a lot of other things that were rigged to make the whole thing blow. 

“Hold on,” Tony instructed, and she did so, clinging to his shoulders, while he opened up a hatch at the bottom. There was enough space for him to fly in, and they stood on the edge of the hatch, looking up at the pointed metal core. 

“Alright, Thor, I need you in the church,” Tony said into the earpiece. So Thor was going to send a wave of electricity through the other side of the core. 

For now, Tony already began, shooting a beam of energy toward the metal core. Thrusters were on full. This was the maximum he could get. Andi was waiting till enough power surged for her to split the metal into pieces.

Unfortunately, waiting was not something she was entitled to because at that very moment, something changed. Andi felt a tug, deep inside her, an almost painful one that made her bend over, clutching at her chest. Her eyes went wide, and it felt like a string that was tethered to her had been cut off. Andi wished she didn’t know what had happened, but she knew. Only one thought ran through her mind. 

_Pietro_. 


	24. it all falls down

It was like there was a ringing in Andi’s ears. She couldn’t hear the sound of the laser coming out of Iron Man’s suit. She couldn’t hear Tony calling on her. And had Tony not been in front of her, she may have lost balance, fallen to the floor — or worse, fallen through the hatch in the floor and to the ground, several thousand feet below. 

All she could think of was that Pietro was dead. She didn’t know how, but she had a strong guess. Ultron was most definitely involved and that was enough for her. 

All her life, Andi had been around enough death. There were always voices in her head, there were always spirits to be seen. She had witnessed enough death too, in Strucker’s facility. But none of that felt like this. Sure, there were times when she just wanted to scream and make the voices go away but that still didn’t compare to the pain she felt now. 

“Andi!” 

Slowly, other sounds started filtering in through to her brain. Tony was looking back at her. He needed her. This was now or never. 

Andi couldn’t put aside her pain for the moment, but if anything, it helped. She so badly wanted to foil Ultron’s plans but even then, she knew it wouldn’t help ease the pure discomfort she felt.

Andi lifted her gaze to the metal spire, and she lifted her hands to work on pulling the metal apart. The familiar purple wisps of energy escaped her fingers, traveling higher till they surrounded the core. It was a large chunk of metal so it wasn’t easy, but she was channelling all her focus into this. All her anger and her pain. 

Halfway through it though, she was momentarily jerked upward, and she lost balance. The same happened with Tony, and she realised that, above ground, someone — one of Ultron’s last robots — must have gotten to the core to push it down. And now the city was falling. If they didn’t act fast… 

Andi quickly grabbed something nearby, to keep herself steady, and immediately resumed working on splitting the metal core. Tony did the same, hovering in the air now, as though he was ready to leave any minute. 

“Alright Thor, we need you now,” Tony said into the earpiece, knowing that they needed more of a power surge to get this to work. Andi heard thunder, and suddenly she saw more electricity crackling along the surface of the metal. 

Andi continued to work, ignoring the feeling of exhaustion creeping up on her, or the throbbing she felt all over her body. She could see a crack beginning to form in the metal, which just encouraged her to keep going. The crack grew, moving up along the metal core, and she witnessed, in just a split second, how the metal broke apart, with a combination of efforts from her, Tony and Thor. And then the entire city exploded.

Andi felt herself falling, after being thrown back a few hundred feet from the explosion. She felt numb all over, and she couldn’t see a thing. All she remembered was a firm grasp on her hand all of a sudden, before everything went dark. 

 

* * *

 

_There was hardly any light. Andi opened her eyes and she was surrounded by a few pillars. She couldn’t even see the length of them. All she could see was what was illuminated by the small fires burning at the foot of each pillar._

_All of them stretched out before her, like it was a pathway. Not knowing what else to do, Andi followed the path, despite not knowing what lay ahead. It couldn’t have been more than a few seconds before the path somehow became clearer._

_In the distance, Andi saw a river. Only, it was no ordinary lake. The liquid was dark blue, almost as if it was imitating a night sky, and if Andi looked close enough, she could see flashes of images. Her father was the only one she recognised. But why was he showing up now, here, in this river?_

_“He deserved it.”_

_Andi looked to her side, and where she could have sworn nobody had been standing there earlier, now, a figure with a dark cloak towered over her. He facing her but she couldn’t see his face. Almost as though whoever was within the cloak was just a shadow._

_“What?” She asked, clearly confused._

_“Your father,” the voice continue. It was a deep voice, and seemed to echo. “He deserved it.” The cloaked figure turned to the river. “Only the worst are punished by being thrown into the river.”_

_This didn’t really clear up Andi’s confusion. “Where am I?”_

_“You haven’t figured it out yet?” He didn’t sound surprised, to her. But he still did not face her again. Andi didn’t notice earlier but now she realised that he had a strange accent. Not one she had heard before. “The name you were given. That should be a big clue.”_

_Her name? Andi? Or her full name? She still couldn’t piece anything together._

_“It doesn’t matter,” the man said, not giving her much time to think. “You’ll figure it out soon enough. Hopefully by the time we meet again, which will be soon.”_

_Andi furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. “When will we meet again?”_

_“Two more times, actually. In the future.” For some reason, Andi could picture him smiling. “Unfortunately, you’re needed above ground so we’ll have to cut our conversation short. Hopefully this will give you something to think about though. There is a lot more to come, Andromeda.”_

_How the hell did he know her name? Suddenly, she felt herself moving back. Or was the man moving forward? Either way, the distance between them was slowly growing._

_“Wait,” she looked at him. “Why will we meet again?”_

_“For the next time, because you will need something,” he explained, turning his back on her. And even though the distance continued to grow till he was a tiny speck and she was slowly being surrounded by darkness, his voice when he spoke again, sounded loud and clear. “And for the time after that, because of your death.”_


	25. starting anew

Andi’s eyes fluttered open. She was met first, with a blinding light. But it wasn’t actually that bright, she realised, as her eyes adjusted. It just felt like a while since she’d been exposed to light. 

Letting her eyes scan the room, Andi figured she was in some kind of bedroom. Although, this didn’t resemble the one she’d had back in the Avengers tower. This was bigger, and the furniture was different. 

A bit of light streamed in through one of the large windows on her right. On her left, sitting in a chair that had been pulled up next to her bed, was Tony. He was leaning back in it completely, and to Andi, it looked like if he were any lower, he might have slid out of the chair. One of his hands was over his face, shielding his eyes, but she could picture them closed. 

Andi sat up, perhaps a bit faster than she should have, and almost immediately regretted it because her head felt dizzy. Andi only then realised that she’d been hooked up to some kind of monitor, which now began to beep. 

Tony jerked awake, almost jumping in his chair. In just a second, the hand of his Iron Man suit came flying toward him, covering his palm, ready to fire a blast at whatever threat was nearby.

Andi froze, looking at Tony with arched eyebrows till he gathered his bearings and realised that nothing was wrong. 

“Force of habit,” he explained with an apologetic expression, his posture relaxing. He lowered his hand, and took off the armour from around his palm before walking around to the monitor that was at her side. She had no idea what he was doing, bringing up some holograms, muttering to himself — or to the holograms — and he got the beeping to stop. 

“How are you feeling?” Tony asked, back still to her. 

Andi sat up again — slowly this time — and leaned back against the fluffy pillows, which were _incredibly_ comfortable. “My head’s spinning. Well, actually, that only happened when I tried to sit up really fast.” 

Tony nodded and turned back to her before sitting down on the chair beside her again. “That’s expected,” he explained, resting his elbows on his knees and leaning forward. “Splitting that metal core took quite a bit from you. You’ve been out for two days.” 

“ _Two days_?” 

Tony nodded again. “My suit had the energy required to help split the core. Thor had his hammer and lightning. You just had… well, _you_. Have you ever even done anything like that before?” 

Well, Andi remembered doing _other_ things with her powers, but those had been more related to the ground, and not metal. So, she shook her head. 

“Well, even if I was strictly against it, it worked. You managed to split the entire thing and, well, here we are. Alive.” Tony looked at her a curious gaze, as if he was trying to read her expression. “You did good, kid.” 

Andi managed a small smile at that, and she looked around again briefly before looking to Tony again. “About that… where exactly _is_ here?” 

“New Avengers base,” Tony explained, smiling. “Yeah, it’s been a work in progress for a while. The Avengers needed a new change of scenery. And if you want it, this is your home.” 

Andi had her answer ready, because of course she wanted that. No place in her life had felt more like home than being with Tony and the Avengers in the past week. “I would love that.” 

Tony’s smile widened a little. “Don’t go crying on me now though, because I’m not good with that.” 

Andi chuckled softly before speaking again. “So what now?” 

“Well,” Tony leaned back in his chair. “I’ve spoken to Cap. We both think that it’d be good if you got a little… _training_.” 

Andi’s eyes grew wide, but Tony continued before she could say anything. “That does _not_ mean that you’re an Avenger,” he told her, waving a finger like Andi imagined most parents scolding their children would do. “It just means that you can’t do stuff like what we just did without proper practise or, some kind of self defence.”

Andi understood that, so she nodded. Inside, she was elated. She was surrounded by good people who wanted to do the right thing. It was a huge change from what she was used to, but definitely more than welcome. 

“ _And_ ,” Tony continued. “We agreed that with your training, you’d also get an education. You’re still only fourteen, so you gotta go to school.” 

And while Andi suspected that was something not many kids her age wanted to hear, Andi was still excited. Even more, if that were possible. She’d never been to school, never been around people her age. “School buses come out all the way here?” Andi asked, glancing to the window. All she saw for miles was a large grassy field, which was bordered by a lot of trees.

“No,” Tony admitted. “But I have a car here and the others will take turns driving you.” 

Andi furrowed her eyebrows at that. “The others?” She echoed. “Not you?” 

Tony pursed his lips and looked down at his clasped hands for a moment. “Yeah, I’m… It’s time for me to tap out.”

“Tap out?”

“The Avengers gig. The more I do it, the more I want to try and save everyone, and the more I realise that that can’t always be done,” he explained with a small shrug, lifting his head to meet her gaze. “I’ll still be here, every now and then. And if anything big comes up, then of course, I’ll come to help. But until then, I’m going to focus on some other things.” 

Andi wasn’t sure how to feel about that. He’d been the one to take her away from Strucker’s facility, and now he was leaving. Not _permanently_ , she knew that, but it was still hard to digest. 

“And,” Tony spoke again. “You know, if you ever need help with, like, homework, or anything, you can always just drop by after class,” he smiled at her. 

That sounded more like an arrangement she could get on board. “Deal.” 

“Well, I’ve got to get going,” Tony said, rising to stand up. “Just wanted to make sure you were all good before heading into the city. But I’ll see you later,” he promised, tucking his hands into the pockets of his pants. 

Andi nodded. “I’ll see you later,” she agreed, smiling a little as he gave her one last glance before walking toward the doors. They opened up, and on the other side stood Wanda, seeming hesitant to come in. 

Tony glanced back at Andi, as if asking one more time whether she was okay, and only once she nodded did he disappear behind the doors, allowing Wanda to come inside. 

The moment Andi saw her, all she could think of was Pietro. Wanda seemed to be doing okay, all things considered, and she came to claim Tony’s former position in the chair beside her bed. 

For a few moments, neither of them said anything. Then Andi spoke. “I felt it. When it happened,” she explained softly, knowing Wanda would understand what she was talking about. Andi knew she would always be cursed to know when someone close to her, or someone in her life, had died, because of her powers. She just never expected it to hurt her because she had always been surrounded by hateful people. Wanda and Pietro were the first to show her any kind of compassion. 

“Did you see him?” Wanda asked, a bit of hope in her eyes. Andi wished she could give her that hope. She wished she could saw she did see Pietro after his death, and that he said something profound and meaningful that would put them at ease. But none of that had happened. She doubted she would see him because death and spirits were complicated that way. Still, she knew she was going to keep trying anyway. 

“I didn’t,” she admitted after a few moments, finding it hard to get the words out of her mouth. “I wish I did, but I didn’t.” 

Wanda reached out to place her hand over Andi’s, before giving it a gentle squeeze. “He died protecting Clint. He died a hero. It’s okay.” 

Andi nodded. She hadn’t known how he died. Just that Ultron had caused it, and that had filled her with anger. But to know that he had done something to sacrifice himself and save Clint, made Andi’s anger disappear. Wanda was right. He died a hero. 

And Andi knew she was never going to forget one of the first people to ever become her friend. 


	26. assemble

Things were slowly settling down. Andi got better pretty quickly since she woke up, so she got a chance to explore the new base — which was _huge_. She hadn’t even explored half of it before she got better completely. 

Through Steve and Natasha, she learned that Thor had left as well, in order to learn more about the Infinity Stones, but with two departures, they got three additional people on their side. Wanda was now officially an Avenger, something that made Andi happy, considering where she was this time a year ago. 

Along with her was Rhodey, in his war machine suit. Then there was Vision, of course, still with the Mind Stone in his forehead. And there was a guy that Andi hadn’t met till now, named Sam Wilson. He had a pretty awesome set of wings, and an even more awesome little drone that fascinated Andi. 

Andi may not be an official Avenger yet but she was still going through training with the others, to get better. They all had outfits to ‘suit up’ into, for the many times that Steve was likely to tell them to do just that in the future. Andi realised one day that she had something too, when she opened up her closet to find a black box with _Stark Industries_ printed onto it. 

When she opened it, there was a small card inside:

 

_Don’t get excited, you’re still not an Avenger. But here’s something to train in until then._

_\- Tony_

 

And when Andi had pulled the outfit from the box, she was pretty amazed. She had no idea what it could actually do, which was why she had to call upon Jarvis — no, _Friday_ — to tell her all about what it could do. Most of it went right over Andi’s head, but the outfit, which was a black body suit similar to Natasha’s, with hints of purple along the sides, fit her perfectly and she loved it. So of course, she wore it to her first day of training. 

Wanda and the others were all there already when she arrived, and she went to go stand with them, feeling quite at home. The hall was huge, and one side was just glass, letting in tons of light. For the first time in almost forever, Andi actually felt like she belonged. These people had already become like her family, and she looked forward to whatever was to come. 

“Avengers,” Steve’s voice came, and Andi, along with the others, looked above where, atop a small balcony that looked over the entire hall, Steve stood, Natasha on his right side looking down at them all with a smile. 

And, as Steve prepared to say something else, Andi could already feel the adrenaline coursing through her veins. 

“Assemble.” 


	27. credits

 


	28. mid credits scene

_On a rising platform, a golden glove is situated. It’s big, definitely bigger than any human hand. And once the platform stops rising, a door opens, filling the area with light, till it is blocked out once again by the presence of a large figure._

_His skin is purple, his eyes blue, and his hand fits perfectly inside the glove._

_“Fine,” he says, flexing his fingers once the glove is on. “I’ll do it myself.”_


	29. post credits scene

_1075… 1075… 1075_ …

Andi had expected a lot out of her first day in a new school. Her first day in _high school_. She thought, based on all the movies she had watched with Steve since he had some catching up to do as well, that she would either make a friend immediately, by chance, or she’d figure her way around easily.

But so far, ever since Rhodey dropped her off, Andi had nearly been run over twice in the parking lot for not looking where she was going, and after managing to find the main office and getting her class schedule and locker combination, she was now struggling to find her locker, even though she had the number scribbled out on a piece of paper.

After looking down both sides of the hallway a few times, Andi spotted the number 1068 ahead. That meant that her locker _had_ to be close by, so she sped up, keeping her eyes on the locker numbers that she passed. 

Andi wasn’t good at looking where she was going, because her mind was elsewhere. This was evidenced by the two time she nearly got run over in the parking lot, and right now was no different, because in her quest to find her locker, she slammed right into someone that had been walking in the opposite direction. 

Andi fall to her back, while the other person probably did the same. She took a moment to gather her bearings before she sat up to see that the other person — a boy — had gotten up already. He had earphones dangling down the side of his leg, and she assumed that, till she walked right into him, they’d been in his ears.

“Oh, God, I- I’m so sorry. Are you okay?” He asked, holding a hand out to help. 

Andi accepted his hand, and rose to her feet, glancing around to make sure she hadn’t dropped anything besides the slip of paper that had her locker number and combination on it. She picked that up before looking at the brown-haired boy in front of her. 

“That was my fault. Sorry. I think I got a little obsessed with trying to find my locker,” she explained with a small chuckle, to try and lighten the mood. 

It seemed to work. The boy rubbed the back of his neck and chuckled a little too. “I can… if you want, I could probably…” he wasn’t finishing his sentences, but he held his hand out for her paper, so she got the message. 

Andi nodded and handed it over to him before he took her exactly three steps further down the hallway where they came to stand in front of her locker. “These can be tricky sometimes,” he explained, nodding to the lock on the door. He looked at the combination once, put it in and then tugged the lock a few times, in a certain direction, before it opened up.

Andi grinned and accepted the piece of paper back from him. “Thanks.” 

He smiled and began to fiddle with his earphones. “No problem, uh…” 

His pause made her realise that he was waiting for her to introduce herself, so she blinked a few times, as the realisation dawned on her, before replying. “Oh, Andi. My name’s Andi. Andi Owen.” 

Thanks to Nick Fury, Tony had helped her get a new fake identity, just in case HYDRA was still sniffing around for her. And Andi knew that her mother was still out there somewhere. 

“Andi,” he nodded, as if testing the name on his tongue before he spoke again. “Well, welcome to Midtown High School,” he said with a smile and then gestured to himself. “And I’m Peter Parker.” 


End file.
